


Never Too Late

by QueenNeehola



Category: Dragon Quest Series, Dragon Quest XI
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Development, Dragon Quest XI Act II Spoilers, Dragon Quest XI Act III Spoilers, Fix-It, Flashbacks, Forgiveness, Healing, Hero | Luminary is Named Eleven | El (Dragon Quest XI), Literally And Figuratively, M/M, Magic, Multi, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, Spoilers, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:21:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 41,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23753005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenNeehola/pseuds/QueenNeehola
Summary: “Each one of you,” Carnelian said, “is to learn the art of magical mending.”Jasper suddenly felt his heart dislodge from his chest and begin to plummet.When King Carnelian enacts a new decree to counter Heliodor's lack of mages, Jasper - still battling the remnants of the darkness he had once chosen and unable to cast a single healing spell - is left reeling and worried for his future.Thankfully, Jade has a solution: send him to study under her old friend Rab, who is skilled in both healing and dark magic.  Before the day is out, Jasper finds himself on a boat bound for Dundrasil, where he will have to confront his deepest and darkest insecurities and desires - as well as coming face to face with the Luminary once more, and becoming part of a group who treat him as neither a knight nor a traitor, but as one of their own.
Relationships: Background Camus | Erik/Hero | Luminary (Dragon Quest XI), Graig | Hendrik/Homer | Jasper (Dragon Quest XI), Homer | Jasper & Hero | Luminary (Dragon Quest XI), Homer | Jasper & Marutina | Jade (Dragon Quest XI), Homer | Jasper & Maya | Mia (Dragon Quest XI), Homer | Jasper & Rou | Rab (Dragon Quest XI), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 159
Kudos: 93





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello, and welcome back to my never-ending quest to fill the dqxi ao3 tag with the jasper appreciation and hendrik/jasper fics we all want and deserve! and by we i mean me. i want and deserve this and sometimes you gotta feed yourself.
> 
> hey so, first off, it says in the tags but **this fic is going to contain both vaguely implied and outright explicitly stated spoilers for both acts 2 and 3 of the game**. i mean, it's a jasper redemption fic. of course it's going to have spoilers.
> 
> the idea for this fic spawned mostly from info in jasper's pages of the official dqxi character book where he says he would befriend serena if he had to pick from the luminary's party, because she would be useful as a healer since heliodor lacks in that department. and then i thought, "hmm, jasper doesn't use any healing spells canonically in any of his encounters, _and_ all those years of using mordegon's power would probably fuck with anyone's ability to use holy magic," and so here we are. also, i love me some exploration of magical ability and further learning and unlocking of latent power thereof, especially when it involves _emotions_. and it _will_ involve emotions.  
> i am also _obsessed_ with thinking about how jasper would interact with various characters, especially given how the party talk about him after the act 3 switch-exclusive content he features in. so since square enix denied me my jasper & party members rights i am here to advocate for them by myself!  
> and, as always, i really _really **really**_ love hendrik/jasper and it continuously pains me that their relationship is so underrepresented in fanworks, because there is _no way_ you can convince me they were not stupid in love with one another their entire lives. there's so much delicious tragic fodder right there in canon! and here i am fixing it! because jasper is my fave and i want him to get kissed!
> 
> some random housekeeping notes:  
> \- jasper haters begone  
> \- idk if the "multi" and "other" ship categories are correct or necessary but platonic/familial relations are going to be a big focus of this fic and i wasn't sure how they fit in with the categories  
> \- the individual chapter word counts are likely to vary _wildly_  
>  \- i have no idea how long this is going to be  
> \- i do not have a posting schedule. you'll get it when you get it  
> \- please be nice to me i am doing my best
> 
> okay, now that i am done rambling for far too long, i hope you enjoy this fic!

There was something to be said for being one of Heliodor’s finest knights.

Custom-made armour, for one. Jasper still privately relished in the silvery shimmer to his, the golden accents that matched his hair, and the tempered fit of the metal sculpted snugly around his body. He had designed both his and Hendrik’s, and he was still proud of how their distinctive looks turned heads wherever they went.

Status was another benefit. Wherever he went, people called him “sir” and bent their heads and moved aside, and he’d be lying if he said it didn’t make his ego swell a little bit bigger every time it happened. That, and it always got him straight to the front of the line in his favourite dessert shop.

It was this status that had the sea of lower-ranked soldiers who were milling in front of the throne room doors parting wordlessly, allowing Jasper to cut through to their head like a gleaming white sword. They muttered amongst themselves as he passed, and it was clear from the whispered pieces he picked up that they didn’t know why they had all been summoned, either.

Jasper paused before the door and glanced at Hendrik. The man had been silently flanking him since they’d received their joint summons as well, and even now he held an expression of stony contemplation, like it had been carved permanently into his face.

“You really have no idea about this?” Jasper asked, his voice private.

Hendrik seemed to snap out of his reverie for the first time. He shook his head after a moment, lowering his hand from where it had been stroking his beard. “I did not hear anything about an audience today, especially with so many of the soldiers. What is His Majesty thinking…?”

Jasper often wondered the same thing these days. But Hendrik wouldn’t approve of that, and so he bit back his snark and pushed the throne room doors open.

There were certain other things that came with being one of Heliodor’s finest knights. Certain things that didn’t involve pretty armour or dessert privileges. Certain things that Jasper would rather not think about, because they made a cold line of sweat bead down his neck.

Certain things like being watched, and being judged.

Jasper had always felt himself more harshly judged than most. It was only in the last year or so that he had learned that he had been his own worst critic, and that no one else held him to the impossibly high standards he imposed upon himself. He had set himself up for failure – or worse – and it was only through the willing kindness of others that it hadn’t actually become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

He still felt watched, however. Watched by his trainees, his peers, and – worst of all – his liege. He wasn’t sure if it was just paranoia that made him think that they were all waiting for him to trip up, to make another catastrophic mistake that all the benevolence of world saviours couldn’t make up for, but it was why he trained harder now than he ever had in his younger years, why he tried to mould himself into as perfect a picture of a knight as he looked on the outside, why he set his shoulders straight and marched into the throne room like the fact that he was clueless about why they had been called there wasn’t slowly filling his head with all the dark anxiety he usually saved for the middle of the night.

Not that he would ever admit any of that.

As he came to a stop close to the base of the steps up to the throne, Hendrik to his left, the masses of lower-ranked soldiers filing in to fill up the space behind them, Jasper was indeed being watched.

King Carnelian’s gaze always held a certain weight, one that had forever gripped Jasper tightly by the shoulders and dug its nails in hard, even before—well, almost everyone knew all the gruesome details by now. 

Jasper inclined his head respectfully and then looked up, carefully avoiding the king’s eyes to look instead to Jade. She stood by her father’s side and met Jasper’s look with a small nod of greeting. Her face was schooled into a regally neutral mask that, infuriatingly, gave no clues as to whether she knew what was going on any better than the soldiers did.

Carnelian turned to her and beckoned her closer, and she bent to listen as he muttered to her. Jasper took the chance to regard his king without being regarded in return.

King Carnelian was getting on in years. That fact was undeniable.

Though he still held himself with a pride and dignity befitting his station - his back straight and his jaw firmly set even as he privately addressed his daughter - there sometimes ran through his arms a visible tremor, and came across his face a wince as he leaned the wrong way on an ache in his hip he otherwise refused to acknowledge.

Time waits for no man, as the saying went. Being possessed by Mordegon for close to twenty years surely hadn’t helped either.

Jasper thought sometimes that he could still see something of his former mas— of _the Lord of Shadows_ left behind in his king: sometimes, when Carnelian turned, Jasper half-expected to see that sick, purplish tinge across his skin, or his ears pointed and devilish with a set of horns to match resting above.

But no, those were illusions; fragments of a time long since past.

But the knowing glint to his eye, masked well behind the layer of benevolence; the set of his shoulders, the sword that forever hung at his hip – those were implications, _threats_ even, of status, of power. 

In that way, some things had not much changed.

Jasper had once thought that he had power. He had thought he claimed it, like an heir to a rightful inheritance. But he knew better now. Even the power he had assumed was his was a farce. Fear did not equal respect. Superiority invoked through violence and subjugation was doomed to fail.

This was true power, Jasper thought with a tired old edge of bitterness, as Carnelian turned away from Jade and rose from the throne and he, along with all the other knights who had been rounded up, knelt automatically. 

Even when the old king wobbled on his feet, and Jade took his arm for a moment to steady him, he looked nothing but regal. He cleared his throat, demanding silence and attention, and when he spoke it rang out across the expanse of his throne room like a deep roll of thunder.

“Rise.”

The soldiers all stood as one in a melody of shuffling feet and singing armour.

Jasper hazarded a look at Hendrik, as if his fellow knight might have inexplicably gleaned anything at all from the past few minutes that Jasper somehow missed.

Hendrik looked back for just a moment, then turned his eyes obediently forward again. But his expression had been as plain as the stiff way he held himself – he remained clueless, and now he was nervous, too.

Carnelian voiced the thoughts of the room: “I imagine you must all be wondering why I have gathered you here today.” There were some fidgets of assent, though no one dared speak it aloud. The king waited until they had stilled again before continuing.

“Heliodor - nay, the world - is at peace, thanks to the heroic efforts of the Luminary and his companions, including our own Sir Hendrik.”

(Hendrik tensed further. He never could take a compliment.)

Carnelian went on, “However, calamity comes not only from the forces of darkness. Monsters may have grown more docile, but they still roam freely outside the city walls. Wars can begin in a day, over naught but trifles. Discord can breed inside a home just as well as outside. I know this better than anyone.”

Carnelian met Jasper’s eyes before he could look away, lingering for what felt like a moment too long to have been purely accidental. Jasper quickly looked down.

“Father,” Jade prompted.

“Ah, yes.” At the reminder from his daughter, Carnelian’s voice took on a less hard tone. “But I must apologise. I do not mean to alarm any of you, nor to sow seeds of doubt as to the state of things. The world _is_ , as I said, at peace. Hope and prosperity flourish. One need only look at Dundrasil, its former king and prince returned and the city itself being rebuilt, as proof of that.

“But there is no shame in being prepared for anything which may arise, which brings me at last to the reason I summoned you all here today. As you know, though our army is mighty, it is not perfect. There is something we lack as a nation.”

Jasper looked up again, curious. Carnelian was no longer looking at him. Thankfully.

“Healers,” the king said.

This time, an audible murmur passed around the room, though Carnelian had only to raise a hand for it to dissipate. Jasper saw out of the corner of his eye Hendrik’s posture relax slightly, his worry disproven; but he felt his own spine pull taut and painfully straight in response. He had a feeling something else was coming, that there was some silent implication in the king’s words, a sort of ominous foreshadowing that he would probably take his time to reveal—

“It has long been a known problem,” Carnelian continued, taking his time indeed, “that Heliodor has lacked in mages, in particular those proficient in the healing arts. I know, in the past, that we have struggled due to this fact. Many of you will recall the number of casualties that occurred the night Dundrasil fell. Most were not our men, of course, but had we had more capable healers on hand I dare say we may have saved multitudes more of our own…and our friends.”

A heavy atmosphere settled over the soldiers at their king’s words. Hendrik went rigid again, no doubt remembering that night as Jasper was, and as many of the older knights who had lived through it would be doing too. Jasper could envision the younger recruits trembling and sharing nervous looks, having only heard the stories of Dundrasil’s fall; and the small group of dedicated healers, in a neat row at the back of the room in their pale robes, hanging their heads in shame at their perceived failings.

(Jasper wondered, for a brief and inappropriate moment, if Carnelian even realised the irony of his own words - how many of the casualties he spoke of had _he_ been responsible for creating, as Mordegon’s flesh puppet? How many more, in the years until the Luminary freed him?)

The king spoke again, parting his way through the tension with ease. “To counter this problem, I am enacting a new decree with immediate effect.”

It seemed, then, that every soldier held their breath as one. Jasper was not immune to it either, feeling his chest tighten strangely and his hands clench into fists where he had them folded neatly at his back. Part of him had foolishly expected – or _hoped_ – the king’s words to lead to a recruitment drive of sorts when he had mentioned the lack of healers. _Clerics, your kingdom needs you! Should also preferably be handy with a sword, greatsword, spear, or halberd. Magicless buffoons need not apply._

But a decree? An _order_ , effective immediately? Such words from a nation’s ruler were not to be taken lightly, no matter the circumstances, and every knight was suddenly taut with anticipation at what he would say next.

“Each one of you,” Carnelian said, “is to learn the art of magical mending.”

Jasper suddenly felt his heart dislodge from his chest and begin to plummet.

“Now, I am not asking you to become proficient in spellcraft overnight. In fact, a basic understanding of how to heal flesh wounds and ease fatigue will be enough. For those of you already able to use this magic, I would have you hone it well, so that you may wield it with pride when the need arises.”

Further and further Jasper’s heart fell, hurtling through the vacuous abyss that seemed to have replaced his stomach.

“By the time six moons have passed, I will expect all of you to have made demonstrable progress. Any who have failed to improve…” Carnelian paused, and the sudden silence hung over the soldiers’ heads like a guillotine. “We will have to discuss your next steps.”

The implication was clear. The blade came down in a merciless strike, and Jasper’s heart flew free from his body altogether to land in a sad heap between his feet. Even then, he could feel it thumping a panicked rhythm, his lungs squeezing tight with the effort of keeping his breath steady.

He was frozen, gaze fixed resolutely ahead but staring at nothing in particular even as Carnelian dismissed them. Even when the soldiers filed out, some bragging of their magical prowess, others with their heads low and already planning what they would tell their mothers when they were ousted from the army, Jasper was silent and still, hearing none of it. Even when Hendrik touched his arm, and Jade descended from her father’s side to ask if he was alright, he did not move. He _could_ not move.

He was scared, he realised belatedly. Of all the things he could have felt in that moment, he found himself totally and utterly _afraid_.

Because Jasper, though he was quick, and smart, and proud, had never been able to cast a healing spell in his life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jasper panics. Hendrik tries to help. It doesn't go well for either of them.

The door slammed behind Jasper, and he sprang away from it again immediately to stride purposefully into his quarters, not pausing for a single breath of reprieve. Not that it would have come anyway – his pulse was a constant, hammering thing in his neck, bringing the panicked beat of his heart (now that he had recovered it from the throne room floor) to sit uncomfortably in his throat.

His steps were a matching tap-tap-tap as he made towards the small line of bookshelves he kept in his room. Reaching up, he skimmed his fingers along the perfectly kept spines, eyes scurrying left-right again and again as he glanced over the titles. He pulled one out: _A History of Heliodor, Abridged_ , and then after a moment he tugged out its girthier, unabridged neighbour as well, tucking them both into the crook of his other arm. _Lost Magicks_ came next, and then the only scruffy looking volume he owned – some ancient tome in an old, near-forgotten language he had been working on translating in his free time. He had only managed the first thirty pages or so, and they seemed to speak mostly of the culinary properties of mushrooms, but perhaps in the later chapters it miraculously morphed into _Magical Mending For Dummies_. One could dream.

Thoroughly weighed down and with his impeccably kept bookshelves now in shameful disarray, Jasper turned and hefted the tomes onto his desk. (His _work_ desk, of course – the second table with the accompanying couch towards the centre of the room was his _leisure_ desk, and this was anything but leisure.)

* * *

The mysterious mushroom cookbook did not, as it turned out, contain a step-by-step process of how to learn healing magic. Jasper got as far as halfway down page thirty-one, which detailed how to best use a small auburn mushroom found only on the slopes of Mount Pang Lai to make a particularly hot curry, before he felt a headache coming on. He flicked to the back, but that seemed to simply be a glossary of fungi. Of course. He didn’t even like mushrooms.

The other books had been less than helpful, too. Both the long and short versions of _A History of Heliodor_ were as much as they said on the cover, and when Jasper turned to the section that covered the royal army it listed no more than numbers, dates, and names of generals. _Lost Magicks_ was not only more of a selection of fables and old wives’ tales than any reliably sourced information, but it was written in such a stuffy, obnoxious old dialect that Jasper immediately remembered why it had been several years since the last time he had attempted to read it.

But he’d known. This was his personal collection of books, after all, and he had already read most of them cover-to-cover multiple times. There was nothing about the healing arts in any of them. It had been futile from the start.

Pushing the books aside, Jasper drummed his fingers on the table, sighing deeply as he considered his next actions. He could check the castle’s extensive library, but it was always full of – _shudder_ – scholars. No one liked to gossip more than those bookish types, and they would have plenty of grain for the rumour mill discussing Jasper’s budding breakdown.

Not that he was having a breakdown. He _wasn’t_. He was just having a—a moment, that was all. A momentary lapse of brainpower, and conduct, and—

–And _timekeeping,_ he realised with a start as he glanced at the clock and saw that he had apparently been having his moment for an hour already. He leapt to his feet. He was supposed to hold a training class with some recruits who were interested in learning to dual-wield in twenty minutes. He hadn’t even finalised his lesson plan. And now, with his heart palpitations renewed – he was going to be dead before he was forty at this rate, and there was no avoiding the irony if _that_ was what killed him, after everything – he really didn’t want to. They would probably all drop out before the second lesson anyway. They always did.

But duty called irritatingly often when one was a knight. At least, Jasper thought as he hurried to the door, he’d had the forethought to not strip out of his armour when he’d barrelled into his room – definitely forethought, definitely _not_ blind panic that had wiped that particular item straight off of his to-do list altogether. Now he could avoid wasting time hefting it all on again and instead get to the training hall early, come up with a new lesson in the fifteen minutes he’d have to spare, and—

He stepped out of the room and straight into Hendrik’s chest.

“Oof—” Jasper stumbled back a few steps, ears ringing from the _clang_ of their breastplates colliding, and when he looked up accusingly Hendrik hadn’t moved an inch from the impact, still standing just outside of Jasper’s quarters with his hand raised, poised to knock. Jasper scowled reflexively. “What is it, Hendrik?”

Hendrik didn’t quite flinch, but he didn’t quite not flinch either. Maybe there had been a little too much venom in Jasper’s voice. He lowered his hand. “I, ah, I came to talk to you. About—”

“Can it wait?” It could. It would. “I have to get to—”

Hendrik grabbed Jasper’s wrist as he made to barge past him. “No, it cannot.”

Jasper tried to tug his arm away, but Hendrik’s hand fit neatly around his wrist like a shackle and held him just as fast. He fixed Hendrik with a withering look. “I have training to get to.”

It took Hendrik a moment longer to reply this time. It looked almost like he was trying to decide on the best words before he actually said them. Eventually, he hazarded, “No, you do not.”

He had been right to be careful with his words, but he hadn’t been careful enough. Jasper rounded on him instantly, giving up on his fruitless attempts to pry Hendrik’s fingers from his arm. “ _Excuse_ me? What do you _mean_ I don’t have—”

“I cancelled it on your behalf,” Hendrik explained. His voice was clear and patient. Jasper went quiet and still, but Hendrik didn’t let go of him just yet. “The recruits will now be covering drills with Selene instead.”

“ _Selene_!?” Jasper hissed. Fury scrunched every line of his face, his muscles wound tight like he was ready to spring at the mere sound of the name. Only the grip on his arm kept him at turbulent peace, vibrating with poorly suppressed anger. “Oh, and I bet she dropped everything to jump at the chance since it was _you_ asking, didn’t she? Honestly, I don’t know how you don’t see her fawning all over you, that shameless—”

“ _Jasper_.” Hendrik’s voice had dropped lower, into a deep rumble of warning. “That is quite enough. Selene is merely young and seeking approval. She looks for praise from you, too, you know.”

Jasper huffed and grumbled, but quieted nonetheless. Perhaps that had been a bit too far. But he didn’t like Selene, or how she near enough hung all over Hendrik whenever possible. With her it was all _Yes, Sir Hendrik_ , and _No, Sir Hendrik_ , and _How high would you like me to jump, Sir Hendrik_ , blinking her big doe eyes and wielding a halberd taller than she was. And Hendrik, flustering fool that he was, would let her off with no more than a chiding word or two.

It was all attention-seeking, if you asked Jasper. Definitely not how a knight should conduct herself, young or not.

...She _was_ young, though. (Too young for Hendrik.)

“In any case,” Hendrik continued, and now he did drop Jasper’s arm, his voice taking a more light-hearted lilt, “I fail to see why you insist on humouring the young recruits when they ask to be taught your combat style. You know most of them will end up dropping out before the second lesson. They always do. No one can wield two blades like you can.”

Jasper, now free, turned away sharply with a huff of disapproval. Because he did disapprove. That was the only reason. Absolutely not so Hendrik couldn’t see him blush. “Don’t attempt to flatter me after you’ve openly admitted to sabotaging my work routine.”

Or so he said, but his mind was currently busy betting that Hendrik had never said anything like that to _Selene_.

Still, having his training class cancelled meant that he no longer had anything on his schedule until after dinner. Which meant that he now had a couple of hours of free time he would normally have used to do some training of his own, or some shopping, or to visit his favourite café for a helping of fruit cream sandwiches and lemon tea.

Now it seemed, as Hendrik continued to hover in the hallway with no apparent intentions of leaving, Jasper was going to have to - _ugh_ \- talk to him.

That wasn’t an unpleasant thought in and of itself. Jasper didn't dislike talking with Hendrik - in fact, he often looked forward to it - and had more than once invited him along for tea and sweets. Even if Hendrik was more for coffee and pastries. There was no accounting for taste.

However, as he reluctantly beckoned Hendrik into his room, he knew that there would be no sweet treats involved this time, and that if anything the impending conversation would probably leave him with a bitter taste in his mouth.

* * *

“So,” Hendrik began haltingly. “Earlier.”

Now Jasper had removed his armour, an action that was intended only to maximise his comfort within his own quarters, and not at all to pad for time until he might have to face what Hendrik was possibly going to bring up. Hendrik still wore his, cutting an imposing dark figure in the midst of the warm colours of the room. That did nothing for Jasper’s nerves. Which he didn’t have. Because he wasn’t nervous.

They both sat at the leisure table, because this was just going to be a leisurely talk between friends. Jasper looked evenly at Hendrik across it. “Yes?” His voice was marvellously even as well. He mentally patted himself on the back.

Hendrik spoke slowly. “You...did not seem yourself in the throne room, and you left quite suddenly. Are you...feeling alright?”

All of Jasper’s evenness stuttered at once. His breath hitched and his eyes flicked down to the tabletop before he caught himself. His fingers twitched with the urge to fix his hair and he scrunched them into fists atop his thighs. Forcing himself to look back at Hendrik, he said, “I’m fine,” which is only ever what people who are not at all fine say.

Hendrik nodded nonetheless, and they lapsed into silence. It was awkward and not leisurely in the slightest.

After a long, stifling minute of unleisurely silence, Hendrik cleared his throat and gestured at Jasper’s work table. The books were still piled haphazardly on one end of it, and the bookshelves behind were in a state of chaos. “Were you...reading?”

“Yes,” Jasper lied. He had looked at hundreds of words, but he wasn’t sure that he had absorbed any of them enough for it to have been called reading. “I was...attempting to translate more of that old tome again. Unfortunately it seems to be nothing more than a mushroom cookbook.”

Hendrik brightened. “Oh, really?”

Jasper made a face. Hendrik liked mushrooms. There really was no accounting for taste.

Nothing more was said between them, and the unleisurely silence returned. Hendrik sat rigid and straight, with only the slight twiddling of his thumbs betraying his awkwardness. Jasper examined the grain of the table with an intense thoroughness. His right leg bounced a little.

Hendrik suddenly took a larger breath in, and Jasper held his automatically in response, almost hearing the next words before Hendrik even spoke them aloud.

“Before,” Hendrik said, “did...did His Majesty say something that...upset you?”

Jasper released his breath all at once, through his nose in a way that he hoped sounded like amusement. He dragged his eyes upwards again. Hendrik’s face was open with concern and confusion. Jasper’s stomach flipped unpleasantly.

“Why do you say that?” Well, now his voice wasn’t even at all. That was disappointing.

“Jasper,” Hendrik said, and now it was that _Jasper_ , that tone Hendrik had that said _don’t start_ and _don’t lie_ and just, _don’t_ , all neatly wrapped up in a single utterance of his name. “You did not even hear the princess when she asked after you. And when she tried to take your arm you almost jumped out of your skin. You looked...pale. You still look pale.”

“Perhaps I’m coming down with something.” Jasper stood abruptly, pushing away from the table not as smoothly as he would have liked. “In fact, I think I’d like to rest for a while.” It was a clear end of conversation, if Hendrik would take the hint.

But Hendrik had never been good at taking hints.

He stood as well, rounding the table in two strides. He came before Jasper, towering over him and looking serious. Jasper puffed up and looked serious right back.

Voice low, Hendrik asked, “Are you worried about the king’s decree?”

A sharp arrow of heat shot up Jasper’s neck and into his face, staining red across his cheeks at being so thoroughly seen through. He stumbled back a step, already bringing a hand up—to hide himself, to fiddle at his bangs, to do _something_ , but there was no way Hendrik hadn’t seen and understood the reaction as the admission it was.

Hendrik answered his own question. “You are worried about the king’s decree.”

Halfway through his deduction, Jasper spat, “I’m _not_ —” but his rebuke fizzled and died as quick as it began, like a beginning spark trampled under a heavy boot. His shoulders slumped, and he tucked a few stray hairs behind his ear. 

“I’m not _worried_ ,” he tried again, but it was unconvincing even to himself. “I’m just… I will need to work harder, that’s all.”

“You work hard enough already,” Hendrik pointed out.

“ _Hard enough_ won’t teach me healing magic from nothing, Hendrik!” Jasper snapped, his anger suddenly stoked back from the brink. When he remembered himself, he realised he had taken a step forward again, crowding into Hendrik’s space and glaring up at him in a way he knew would have made a lesser man cower away.

Hendrik, however, was just blinking owlishly at him. “From nothing?”

The words were like a bucket of cold water dumped on Jasper. He froze, his own eyes widening to match Hendrik’s. His mouth opened uselessly around the excuses caught in his throat like lumps of ice.

Now Hendrik just looked confused. “I was under the impression you were skilled at magic.”

“I-I—well—not—” Jasper stammered, shrinking back like dying cinders. He desperately clamoured for his brain to just pick an answer and stick with it. “O-Offensive magic. Disabling. Not...not support. Not healing.”

“But surely you can pick it up easily? You are the most intelligent person I know.” Hendrik said it like it was a fact. Like it was just that simple.

And, for a foolish moment, as Jasper allowed himself to be led over to the couch and sat at Hendrik’s side, he believed him.

* * *

Hendrik was not a good teacher. Not of magic, in any case.

Hendrik excelled with physicality, the tangible rather than the conceptual - the straining bulge of his biceps as he swung his greatsword and the thunk it made as it took the head clean off a manticore. He could show anyone how to angle the flat of their blade to block a blow and how to lower their centre of gravity to avoid being knocked off their feet. He had run more drills with the recruits than Jasper could count, ceaseless and strict in his instructions for as many weeks as it took until their posture was perfect, until they could do run-throughs in their sleep: until there were visible results.

Teaching magic, intuitive as it was, was not really Hendrik’s forté.

“Like this,” he said for the seventh time, holding his hand palm-up and invoking a simple healing spell. It glowed a light green over the lines of his palm, but with no target it fizzled away to nothing after a few seconds, leaving behind no trace except a slight tingle in the air.

Jasper grit his teeth, swallowing a scowl. _Like what?_ Hendrik was giving him nothing to go on except the same inane demonstration over and over, with a few bungled attempts at explaining how he summoned his own healing magic peppered here and there.

But he was being patient, not patronising; his voice gentle and low like he never was with the recruits; and he had miraculously cleared his entire schedule to spend his afternoon playing teacher to Jasper.

So, Jasper supposed he owed Hendrik enough that he could at least keep trying.

 _And you love him, so you would do anything he asked anyway,_ the little voice in Jasper’s head helpfully supplied.

He couldn’t quite hide the scowl that time.

 _Yes, I am aware,_ he fired back at the voice. He was also aware how idiotic that was, since both voices were his, and he was essentially arguing with his own thoughts. Logical brain versus emotional brain.

Emotional brain was right, though.

He was absolutely, head-over-heels, one-hundred-percent smitten with Hendrik.

It had come as a rather unpleasant surprise at first. He had been so sure he’d hated Hendrik. Abhorred him, in fact. Wanted him _dead_ , at one point.

It turned out that whoever came up with the saying “love and hate are two sides of the same coin” wasn’t as much of a brainless amoeba as Jasper had originally thought.

The Luminary had gone and spared him - _saved_ him - and the darkness that had plagued and shackled him for years had begun to lift, and then Hendrik had done something monumentally stupid and forgiven him _,_ and looked at him with a gentle honesty he didn’t deserve, and called him _his light_ , of all things—

And Jasper had realised in a single moment just how completely and irrevocably fucked he was.

It had all made sense after that. The years of jealous pining, the false superiority crying “look at me,” the shamefully childish - and, admittedly, murderous - tantrums he had thrown when he didn’t get what he wanted.

And now, what he wanted was sitting close enough on the couch for their thighs to press together, and was looking into his face with a startling level of concern.

Oh. He had been staring.

“Are you alright?” Hendrik was saying, and Jasper had a feeling it was not the first thing he had said. “ _Are_ you ill?” The hand that had moments before been conjuring magic now came up, aimed squarely at Jasper’s forehead. Jasper imagined what it would be like to let it happen: Hendrik’s palm would likely be rough, but gentle, and large enough to cover his forehead easily, fingers threading into his hair. Maybe there would still be remnants of healing magic across Hendrik’s skin, or maybe he would cast more if he thought Jasper had a temperature, and the soothing sensation would have Jasper leaning automatically into the touch, cool but igniting a heat in him that had nothing to do with the fake fever—

And then, logical brain kicked in again, and Jasper smoothly ducked Hendrik’s hand. He waved him away impatiently. “I’m fine. I just lost focus for a moment.”

The explanation pacified Hendrik, but warily, like he didn’t think Jasper ever lost focus but also didn’t think he would lie to him about it. Neither of those were true.

Jasper ignored him and held his own hand out for the seventh time, palm-up like Hendrik had. He took a slow, calming breath. _Magic. Healing magic. It can’t be that hard._

Jasper’s palm began to glow, but not with a comforting green succour. _Glow_ wasn’t really the right word either, since the black-tinged purple that emanated from his skin didn’t give out any sort of light that Jasper knew of. If anything, it was more like a _void_. A void with wispy, smoky tendrils, reaching for something to consume.

He snapped his palm shut and it disappeared instantly. The breath he took this time was neither slow nor calm.

“Well,” said Hendrik. For the seventh time. “Shall we try once more?”

For some reason that Jasper couldn’t comprehend - he had never been overly familiar with the whims of his temper, just with how savage it could be when he didn’t rein it in - that was enough.

He stood. “No.”

Hendrik stood, too. “...No?”

“No,” Jasper affirmed. He took a safe step away, in case Hendrik did something idiotic like try to touch him. “I’d like you to leave now.” His voice didn’t waver once. It didn’t feel as good as he wanted it to.

“Jasper,” Hendrik said, and tried to take a step around to Jasper’s front. He kept his back stubbornly turned, though, leaving Hendrik to plead to the back of his head. “Jasper, I understand that you are frustrated, but you cannot expect to master a new form of magic in an afternoon. His Majesty gave us six months, and if we keep at it, I am sure you will make progress soon enough! You are far more skilled than I in the magical arts, so—”

Jasper whirled on him so quickly and viciously that Hendrik stepped back in surprised retreat.

“Do not claim to _understand_ anything, Hendrik.” His voice was low, quiet, but he could feel the unmistakably malevolent barbs that coated his words like hidden poison. Waiting. “It doesn’t matter how many times I try, I will never be able to do it.”

“You cannot know that—”

“You’re the one who doesn’t know anything!” Jasper snapped. A secret part of him felt vindicated that Hendrik had so easily walked into his trap. It gave him a free pass to blame him. Again. “I _do_ know. And do you know how I know? Because I can do nothing but _this_.” He angrily thrust his hand forward, and immediately the little purple-black void sprung up in his palm again. It flickered in time with his words. “I have tried. I can’t conjure heat, nor cold, nor winds nor barriers nor anything that isn’t meant _only_ for hurting and hindering people!

“I know,” he said, extinguishing his spell and dropping his hand to his side, “because I once chose darkness over everything and it remains in me to serve as my reminder.”

Silence fell again, heavy and stifling. Jasper looked at Hendrik, and Hendrik looked back. His jaw worked around unspoken words.

Eventually, he said, “You can learn.” Jasper snorted, rolling his eyes, but Hendrik persisted. “You can! If even someone such as I can show some affinity for the healing arts, then you certainly—”

“Don’t you dare!” Jasper’s shout surprised even himself. It worked as intended though, Hendrik’s mouth snapping closed at being so severely shut down. He exerted his rapidly fraying self-control and lowered his voice again, back to that same acidic hiss as before. “Don’t you _dare_. ‘Even you?’ How dare you say that to me, when you’ve been nothing but— After everything— When you _know_ how I—” Too many thoughts tried to voice themselves at once, none of them pleasant. He stopped and pivoted sharply on his heel, not deigning to look at Hendrik anymore. It was easier. “Get out.”

“Jasper—”

“ _Get out!_ ” It felt good to shout. It would feel better to scream.

After a moment that felt as though it lasted several hours, Jasper heard Hendrik move. The shuffle of his feet against the carpet. The metallic rattle as he replaced his gauntlets. And then footsteps.

Jasper kept his eyes stubbornly pointed down, but he saw Hendrik’s lower body as he passed him. Saw the stiff tension in every step he took. Good. He deserved to be tense. Jasper was tense, too. Undeservedly, of course. He was probably going to have a sore back tomorrow. Wonderful.

The door opened, and then closed, and then Jasper was alone.

He took a breath, and then another, and then some more. His heart beat hard in his chest and ears and skull all at once. He forced his shoulders to relax where they’d been almost hunched up at his neck - they’d probably hurt in the morning, too.

His pulse eventually evened as a sick sort of calm washed over him. He may as well be calm. It was too late to do anything about it now, anyway.

This was the crux of Jasper’s issues - and oh, he had _several_. He could not do something, and someone else could. _Hendrik_ could. He couldn't keep up. And instead of accepting help, he would just curl in on himself with his claws and teeth bared like a wounded animal, and lash out with savage anger to cover his fear until the help stopped coming. And then he’d lose everything. Again.

People didn’t normally get third chances.

“I need a drink,” he said to the empty room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _oh dear._
> 
> thank you for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jade has a proposal for Jasper.

Jasper was awoken by a persistent, loud rapping. As he blinked himself to bleary consciousness, catching sight of the wine-stained glass on his bedside table, his first coherent thought was that he was, unfortunately, hungover. His second coherent thought was to hastily discard the first, as he certainly knew his limits and wasn’t fool enough to drink himself into a stupor when he had work to attend to the next morning, no matter how much his life might be falling to pieces around him.

Further proof of his sobriety came when he pushed himself into a sitting position and the thumping sound continued, but no pain in his head arrived to accompany it.

He glanced at the clock. It informed him that he was running perilously close to late, _again_ , but provided no further clues to the sound, and if he hadn’t drunk enough to even get a headache, then he certainly hadn’t drunk enough to imagine the clock ticking at ten times its normal volume.

The thudding grew more rapid in tempo - no, the _knocking_ , Jasper realised, as his brain finally decided to wake up along with his body. Someone was at his door. And, by the sound of it, they were getting impatient. It certainly wasn’t the soft-spoken maid who attended to his quarters; she would never make such a racket. Nor was it one of his fellow soldiers, who would have already alerted him to their irritating presence with incessant calls of his name.

A thought struck him that had him scrambling out of bed, combing hasty fingers through his hair and straightening his sleep-tunic as he scurried towards the door. He had skipped dinner and cancelled the meeting he was supposed to be heading last night. Those weren’t causes for concern on their own - sometimes he was just too busy to eat on schedule, and sometimes other things came up that were more important than listening to twelve different merchants argue about why they should all be allowed to dock their ships in Heliodor's waters.

But he hadn’t been busy, and nothing else had come up. He had been sitting alone in his room and sinking slowly into depression and wine all night.

And only one person knew him well enough to know that. Only one person would know to come and check on him, no matter how he had unfairly yelled at them and would quite possibly unfairly yell at them some more. Only one person was stupid and wonderful enough to never leave Jasper alone when he insisted he wanted to be left alone, and so there was only one person it could really be outside his door right now—

“Jasper!” Jade’s voice carried as easily through the solid wood as if she’d cut it clean in two. Jasper stopped still. His arm hovered, awkwardly outstretched, where he’d been reaching for the handle. Something heavy and bitter settled in his gut. _Two people_.

“I know you’re in there,” Jade continued. She finally stopped her knocking, and in its place a quieter rhythm started up - the pointed toe of her shoe tapping impatiently against the floor, probably. “And we both know I’m getting in one way or another. It’ll be much easier - and we’ll avoid having to explain to my father why your doors are lying splintered off their hinges - if you just open up.”

It would have been a decent joke...if there was an ounce of mirth in Jade’s voice. As it stood, Jasper knew it for the threat it was, and one that she was absolutely intent on carrying out if he didn’t comply.

So he opened the door.

Jade looked radiant as always despite the early hour, and her triumphant smile as she strolled past Jasper and into his room was brighter yet. He closed the door with as much dignity as a man in his nightclothes in front of a princess could.

When he turned back to her, Jade had settled comfortably back into the plush couch at the centre table. She eyed the open - but not empty - bottle of wine that had been abandoned atop it, and then her gaze flicked deliberately to Jasper.

“I wouldn’t really have kicked the door down.”

“It wasn’t a risk I was willing to take,” Jasper replied.

Jade smiled knowingly. She motioned for him to take one of the seats opposite her. He sighed, and scowled, and sat.

It wasn’t usual for a knight to show such explicit disdain to the very face of the member of royalty he served. But it wasn’t usual for the member of royalty he served to threaten to break into his room and seat herself on his furniture without fanfare, either.

But there was nothing _usual_ about Jasper and Jade’s relationship by any stretch of the imagination. 

Jasper had expected her - along with everyone else - to hate him for everything he had done. For betraying her beloved nation. For not helping to rid her father of the darkness that had taken hold of him, but instead allying himself with it. If he were to be brutally honest, he had expected his head to be removed from his shoulders as soon as she got her hands on him. But instead she had cried at the bars of his cell and vouched for him along with Hendrik and the Luminary, not ten minutes after vanquishing Mordegon himself and freeing her father. And if Carnelian listened to anyone, he listened to his daughter.

 _My father thinks himself weak,_ Jade had once told Jasper, _for letting himself be possessed. He might not show it, but he blames himself for all of it. Especially for letting one of his best knights be manipulated._

Jasper wasn’t sure he really believed that, but it helped. Sometimes.

“Can I help you with something, Your Highness?” he asked, folding his hands together atop the table. He schooled his voice and expression into pleasant neutrality, like he wasn’t suddenly very aware that he had no underwear on. “It’s unusual that you seek me out in particular, especially so early.”

Jade sat up straighter and mirrored Jasper’s pose, but her mouth dropped into a small curve of sincere concern. “I was worried about you yesterday. You left so suddenly and then I didn’t see you again. The servants told me you weren’t at dinner either.”

“I wasn’t feeling quite myself. Not really up to eating.” It wasn’t technically a lie. That didn’t make it any easier to say to Jade’s face, especially when she once again eyed the bottle of wine with clear suspicion. “Rest assured I’ll be at breakfast this morning.”

Jade was quiet, but gave a small nod. It seemed to pacify her enough that she wasn’t going to press. Maybe she would even take that as enough of an answer and leave.

“Hendrik was worried about you, too,” she said, and well, she definitely wasn’t going to leave now. Her lips quirked into a small smile. “You know how he gets.”

The bitter feeling had never quite left Jasper’s stomach, but now it intensified, pulling heavy and viscous against his insides. Maybe he could still get her to leave if he pretended hard enough that he didn’t know what she was talking about, and then he could get on with his day and schedule another breakdown for later when it would be more convenient. “Princess, I—”

“He came to me,” Jade said, “and told me that my father’s decree was worrying you, because you can’t use healing magic, and you’re afraid you’ll be cast out of the army.”

Jasper closed his mouth and fixed his gaze on the tabletop.

“He _didn’t_ tell me,” she continued breezily, “that you lost your temper at him, but with how he was moping around all night with his tail between his legs it was obvious.”

Jasper looked at the tabletop more intently. It was really nice wood. Mahogany, probably.

Jade sighed. “Honestly, Jasper, I thought you’d gotten past the ‘pulling a boy’s hair because you like him’ stage.”

Jasper remained quiet, but his face began to burn very unpleasantly. He didn’t have to look at Jade to acknowledge her eye-roll - it was near enough audible. She tapped gently on the lovely mahogany - or maybe redwood? - table and he hesitantly raised his eyes to meet hers.

“I didn’t come here just to make fun of you, you know,” she said.

“I would hope not,” he replied drily.

Jade giggled behind a delicate hand, and then folded them together on the tabletop again. Her gentle expression hardened a little, and shoulders rose and fell as she took a breath and exhaled it slowly. In that moment, she looked so much like the portraits of her late mother that adorned many of the castle walls - beautiful and serious, long-lashed eyes belying a stalwart resolution. It was the face of a woman who had things to say, and who was about to say them. Jasper swallowed.

“I came to say that you really needn’t worry,” Jade said. “You’ve been part of my father’s closest team for years. He wouldn’t get rid of you just like that. In fact, I wouldn’t put much stock in his threats at all. If our army is lacking in numbers, I doubt he’s going to thin the ranks even more by sending away everyone who can’t cast a spell. If that was the case, I’d be on the streets myself.”

Jasper couldn’t help but ask, “He hasn’t spoken with you about it?”

Jade sighed. “My father tells me far less than you might think. Doesn’t want to bore me with too many _adult_ duties when I ‘didn’t even get to have a childhood,’ or so he says. He’s quite content to continue to let me play the role of his little girl. I thought my mid-twenties would be filled with balls and suitors, not... _tea parties_.”

“I didn’t take you for the type to long for suitors to be falling at your feet, Princess,” Jasper remarked.

She looked affronted at the insinuation. “ _Believe me_ , I am not. If anyone falls at my feet it will be because I have put them there.” Her clasped hands squeezed tighter together for a moment, like she was imagining an unfortunate man’s neck caught between them. She probably was. “But I meant what I said, Jasper. Don’t stew on my father’s words too much. He thinks more highly of you than you imagine.”

Jasper’s gaze fell again. He thought for a moment about just agreeing with Jade. But she of all people deserved more than lies. Though the truth would probably be a mistake - but really, what was one more to add to the pile? “I think perhaps you overestimate his leniency.”

Jade’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

He had a feeling she knew exactly what he meant. He had a feeling he would be walking straight into a trap if he continued. And yet, like every other bad decision he had ever made in his life, he had a feeling he wasn’t going to be able to stop himself from doing it anyway. 

“If I may speak plainly, Princess,” he said, and she nodded her permission, “it’s all very well for you to be unable to use magic when your country is short of mages, or for you to take it easy when one would expect you to be hard at work, because you are the king’s child. His only child, and thus, his only heir.” He paused for a moment, and saw Jade fold her arms. Her knuckles pressing white against her skin was the only clue that she might be a little irritated at his words, as she regarded him with eyes like the leaden grey of a heavy sky about to break. She didn’t immediately spring across the table and break his jaw though, so he made the stupid decision to keep talking. “Your life is worth more to him than your abilities. Soldiers don’t have such a luxury. And I should think that I in particular am not likely to be afforded such privileges any—”

Jade’s hand met the tabletop with such force that Jasper jumped and the wine bottle wobbled dangerously, but after a moment it settled back onto its punt without incident. Jasper also settled back into his chair, but he foresaw a great deal more incident coming to him.

“Enough.” Her voice was low and even but reinforced like steel, daring him to stand against her. He did not. “Now _I_ will speak plainly.

“I may be the only heir, but I have _never_ been my father’s only child. Long before I was born, he already had two sons. I had two wonderful big brothers and I loved them unconditionally, and _because_ I still love you, Jasper, I am not afraid to tell you when you’re acting like an arse. And you are most certainly acting like an arse right now.”

Jasper’s mouth hung open and, like she thought he would ever be able to interrupt her, Jade stood and barrelled on with renewed vigour.

“How _dare_ you insinuate you are not afforded specific privilege when we’re having this conversation in your private quarters rather than in the barracks? Or in the _cells_ , even? When you can throw temper tantrums and skip meals and meetings without reproach? When you can speak to me with such blatant disrespect for the life I was forced to live, because I assure you, if we are to speak of _privilege_ —”

She stopped suddenly, and Jasper saw for the first time past the angry red in her cheeks the trembling of her lips beneath; the sorrow in her eyes below the sharp line of her brows. The gravity of his mistake hit him as hard as if she had roundhouse-kicked him herself. Jade had been born a princess, and now was one again, but for almost twenty years she had been nothing. Lost, presumed dead, an orphan wandering across Erdrea.

She had only been eight years old when she lost everything.

Jasper watched her take a slow breath to calm the heaving in her breast, saw her deliberately lower her tense shoulders, and he began to feel, exactly as Jade had said, like an arse.

“My father mourns every day for the people he helped destroy,” she said softly. “Including you.”

Jasper tried to speak this time, but Jade fixed him once more with that look from before, like she was contemplating strangling some poor man. Except this time it seemed she had one particular man in mind. Said man wisely closed his mouth.

Jade sighed. “I didn’t mean to lose my temper, but—” She sighed again, passed a hand over her face, and then, inexplicably, she was smiling. Small, barely a twitch in the corners of her mouth, but there nonetheless. “It seems like I picked that up from my big brother.”

Jasper hazarded a small smile, too. He didn’t immediately receive a black eye for his trouble, which was promising, but he didn’t let it linger too long either. “Princess, I am...sorry for—”

“Oh, don’t bother.” She waved his words away. “We’ll be here all day if I let you list everything you’re sorry for, and neither of us have time for that.” At his look of confusion, her smile widened in a secretive, cheeky way he remembered well from when she was small. Back then, her secrets had been as harmless as sliding flowers into his hair under the pretence of wanting to brush it for him. Now, he felt a distinct shudder of apprehension run down his spine. “I actually came here with an offer for you, but if you’d rather continue to wallow in your wine and self pity I’ll take my leave and say no more about it. Are we clear?”

Jasper blinked. “An off—”

“Are we _clear_ , Jasper?”

She was still smiling, but only with her mouth. Her eyes gave a different message, one that challenged him: _say no and see what happens._ Jasper swallowed. She was definitely her father’s daughter. “Yes, Your Highness.”

“Good, then.” And just like that, her expression mellowed again. She took a seat. “So, my offer: I believe I know of someone who can tutor you in the healing arts.”

Jasper was helpless to stop his jaw from hitting the desk for the second time in five minutes. “A—You—Wh— _Pardon?_ A tutor? _Who_?”

Jade tried her best to conceal it, but her amused smile broke through nonetheless. A true smile this time, it made her face shine with girlish glee. “Someone who, like you, is also proficient in dark magic. I thought of him immediately when I heard of your worries.”

Jasper fell silent, though his thoughts were anything but. They swirled and branched out in all directions, trying to piece together Jade’s words to no avail. Disbelief dulled his mind, filling it with idiotic trifles like optimism and faith instead. Honestly, next he’d be down at the church praying to the World Tree every week.

“Well?” Jade prompted, pushing easily through the clamour of his thoughts. She glowed with unrestrained amusement at what could only be Jasper gaping like a particularly unattractive fish. “Do you accept, or shall I pour you another glass and leave you to it?”

“I...I accept,” he managed. “Of course I accept, Princess, but—”

She held up a hand, stopping his objections in their tracks. “That’s enough. I think the good knight doth protest too much, hm?” Before he could answer, she stood again, continuing as she rounded the table. “Now that that’s agreed, pack your things. It won’t take long for me to organise a ship.”

“Pack my—a _ship_!?” Jasper spluttered and sprung to his feet as well, spinning to face Jade where she had breezed past him on her way to the door. “Where am I going?”

She paused and tilted her head, regarding him with wide eyes like she was surprised how slow he was on the uptake.

“Why,” she said, “to Dundrasil, of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a shorter chapter this time, but the next one and most future chapters should be at least a bit longer than this, so i hope you didn't mind! also, it was mostly an excuse to write jade absolutely ripping jasper to shreds, which is both what he deserves and needs.  
> (i also know there has been kind of a lot of dialogue so far but like...exposition. character depth. plus i just like writing dialogue, don't judge me)
> 
> some random notes for things i thought of while editing this chapter:  
> \- i headcanon jade as being 26 during the events of the game, therefore being ten years younger than hendrik and jasper. i also firmly headcanon eleven as 18 rather than 16, fuck what the game/character book says, because i'm not here for child protagonists, so by extension dundrasil fell 18 years prior to the events of the game rather than 16; hence jade being eight when it happened. just pretend everything and everyone else that has dates or ages that correspond to el's age has been tweaked accordingly. i don't care. it's not important  
> \- i _am_ going to go into slightly more detail on how jasper survived mordelian's attempt on his life at yggdrasil in a future chapter (or maybe chapters) but it won't be completely in-depth. we stan jasper just being alive and having a redemption arc, fuck the details
> 
> next time, in the words of jade herself: to dundrasil, of course!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jasper sets off for Dundrasil, and on the way ruminates on his departure from Heliodor and makes a new friend(?).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we've finally reached the chapter where i get to flex the fact that i am scottish and write a drasilian character! it was tempting to go completely ham and make it borderline illegible to non-scots but i'm not that mean, so it's mostly just written in plain english with some slang dotted here and there for effect. i _think_ it should all make sense, if you understood rab in the game then you'll understand the drasilian characters in this fic, but i'll put a little glossary of words that might not be common knowledge in the end notes. now you get to read fic _and_ learn!
> 
> also there's some jumping back and forth between past and present in this chapter, but i hope it isn't too jarring!

The sun was beginning to set across the ocean, bending to dip its warm tendrils of light into the water as if to calm its heat so it might sleep well during the night to come. The waves had glowed bright all day beneath the cloudless sky, but now a tinge of orange crept into them like flame along ignited oil, and they crested into a spray of cinders.

Still, the ship sailed on, the stiff sea breeze at its back urging it ever onward.

That same sea breeze had been a mercy during the sun’s highest hours, but now twilight was setting in and laying her cold cloak over Erdrea.

Jasper shuddered and tugged his own cloak - thankfully made of warmer materials - tighter around his shoulders. He frowned at the oddly poignant reverie he had been pulled out of. Clearly reading the book of poetry he’d found tucked away in his sleeping quarters had done something to his brain. It had probably been left behind by a previous passenger, and Jasper couldn’t blame them. The poems were _not good_. Though apparently they were still evocative enough to have him thinking in similes and assigning personalities to times of day, which was not something he usually involved himself in. 

Besides, he had more pressing mysteries to unravel in the quiet sanctity of his own mind (not that his mind had been particularly quiet _or_ sanctified since he left Heliodor). Things like what in the world he was going to do when he actually got to Dundrasil. It wasn’t as though anyone had actually told him. In fact, no one had spoken to him much at all.

He cast a glance around the deck. Aside from a couple of necessary crew members milling around, he was alone, and they weren’t likely to approach him unless it was to let him know it was mealtime, or to give him brief updates on the journey. Even the young soldier who had accompanied him to the pier to see him off had barely said a word.

Everyone was just as bewildered at his sudden, lonesome journey as he was, he supposed. Especially when the princess of Heliodor herself had specially arranged it.

Jasper allowed himself a small, wry smile. Jade was a force to be reckoned with.

* * *

“D-Dundrasil?”

“Yes,” Jade replied, enunciating the word slowly. She definitely thought he was stupid. “Is there a problem with that?”

Jasper floundered for a moment - his work, his schedule, _the king_ \- but he couldn’t imagine that she hadn’t already taken care of everything. She could be frighteningly thorough. “N-No,” he conceded, “but...why Dundrasil?”

Jade gave him the exasperated look she had perfected as a young child. “Because that’s where Rab lives.”

“Rab…?” It took an embarrassingly long time for Jasper’s brain to connect the dots and put the fond nickname to a face he - nay, most of Erdrea - knew well. “L- _Lord Robert_ is to tutor me!?”

“Of course.” Jade turned a positively sunny smile on him. “His dark magic is second to none, you know. And he’s one of the most competent healers I’ve ever known. He had his work cut out when I was young and a bit overzealous, so I’m sure he can handle you.”

* * *

So it had come to pass that Jasper had been left to pack his things while Jade cancelled his plans for the next six months and arranged travel to Dundrasil, and then he had been ushered out of Heliodor and onto a boat before the day was out.

It wasn’t even a _big_ boat. Not that it was some tiny fishing vessel; no, it was still of Heliodorian craft, with intricately carved and painted motifs decorating every side and large enough to be threatening to any less reputable sailors on the waters, but it wasn’t exactly…

Well, it wasn’t part of the fleet he had once commanded, to put it one way.

And now, he was out in the middle of the inner ocean, still not exactly sure what he was getting himself into. An irritatingly persistent restlessness tugged at his feet, making him pace the length of the lower deck again and again. One poor deckhand in particular had had to duck out of his way several times during the day, squeaking out pathetic apologies every time. Jasper probably wouldn’t have noticed him if not for that. He had been too busy thinking: about his whole predicament, of course, but mostly about something else Jade had said.

* * *

“I knew you’d agree,” she said, but there was a glint in her eye that implied that even if he hadn’t, she would have dragged him kicking and screaming onto the boat herself. “I already sent word ahead to Rab that he’ll be getting another pupil. I’m sure he won’t mind; he wrote me that he’s been all but banned from helping with the more physical side of the reconstruction because of his age. Sitting around and doing kingly things after all this time is no doubt driving him up the wall.”

She chuckled with genuine fondness, and her eyes were still soft with it when she looked up at Jasper. “So I suppose this is goodbye for a while.”

“I suppose it is,” Jasper agreed. He shifted the bag slung over his shoulder, aware of all the eyes in the lobby pretending not to be watching them. The maid off to their left had watered the same plant four times.

“You will write, won’t you?” Jade asked.

Jasper inwardly groaned. Penning personal letters was not his favourite hobby. “I will...send updates of my progress when I can find the time.”

He took it as being a satisfactory answer when Jade beamed at him. Until she opened her mouth. “Be sure to write to Hendrik, too. He’ll get lonely.”

It was such obvious bait that he refused to take it. His face didn’t get the memo from his brain, though, and it flared into a glaring scarlet beacon. He lowered his head because it was the respectful thing to do before his princess, and not because he was horribly embarrassed.

“Thank you for your concern,” he ground out. “I will take my leave now, Princess.”

As he straightened up again, he made the mistake of meeting her eyes and—oh. She was annoyed. With a tinge of incredulity, too. He hadn’t seen that precise look on her since she was a child and he had stopped her ruining her dress and breaking her leg by climbing the biggest tree in the garden, and he couldn’t figure out why it was resurfacing now.

“You can’t leave yet,” she was saying.

“W-Why not?” Something in the back of his mind told him this was another trap, and, fool that he was, he was going to blunder straight into this one, too. She was too good at this. If she wasn’t set to be queen, she would have a promising career ahead of her as a military strategist. Jasper would train her himself. (Or, more likely, she would end up training him.)

“You haven’t said goodbye properly yet,” Jade said, and then Jasper barely caught the split-second devilish twist of her mouth before she attacked.

With lightning speed, her arms caught him around the middle, pulling him close and precariously off-balance before he could think to react. His own arms flailed at his sides, helpless to prevent the onslaught of affection, and his light travelling tunic did nothing to protect him from the crushing strength of Jade’s hug. With her cheek squished against his chest, she glanced up at him and laughed out loud, probably at how his blush had extended both down his neck and up to the roots of his hair.

The people around them had given up their charades of indifference and were now unabashedly staring. The maid almost dropped her watering can.

After what felt like several years of Jasper’s (probably shortened) lifespan, Jade finally relented. She unhooked her vice-like arms and stepped back, entirely unruffled and perfectly princess-like. Jasper thought he might have to delay his trip to treat a broken rib.

She grinned. “Safe travels.”

Jasper responded, “Thank you, Princess,” with as much dignity as he could muster and as much blatant sarcasm as he dared load into his voice in public. One of them far outweighed the other.

Once he was sure she wasn’t about to launch another assault on him, Jasper bowed his head again, adjusted his luggage, and turned and left the castle.

* * *

It hadn’t occurred to him until he was already on the boat. Still pondering his trip (and reeling from being bear-hugged by the princess of Heliodor in the castle lobby, among other things), his mind had been running shamefully slow as he mounted the horse brought to him and rode down the Emerald Coast.

Now he leaned against the deck railing, staring out across the darkening water. Its sunset fires were quickly being extinguished by the impending nightfall, leaving the depths they sailed upon as dark and impenetrable as Jasper’s innermost—damn it all, there was that infuriating poetry again. He was definitely throwing that book overboard as soon as he got the chance.

“Another pupil…” he murmured.

Since his realisation that he wouldn’t be the only one studying under Lord Robert, he had been quietly considering who his fellow student (or _students_ ) might be. He had boarded the ship alone, so the knight who had accompanied him to the pier was out of the question; he had only been there to take Jasper’s horse back to Heliodor. Jasper hadn’t heard of any other knights being sent abroad for training either, so clearly he wouldn’t be working alongside any familiar faces.

From another army, then? Sniflheim had that ice witch on their side since she had cosied up to their young queen, so any magic tutelage they needed would surely come from her. Perhaps the Gallopolitan sultan had finally decided to try to make something of his nation’s soldiers, since he clearly couldn’t make anything of his useless son, but that seemed just as unlikely.

Jasper got precisely nowhere with his musings. With not enough information to go on his mind continued to run itself in circles, conjuring new questions before he had even begun to answer the old ones until he was stuck deeper in riddles than he would be in water if he flung himself overboard.

He heaved a sigh. _Those bloody poems_. That hadn’t even been a good attempt at poetry. Too basic. Yggdrasil above, now he was arguing with himself about wordplay. It was definitely time to turn in.

* * *

The boat arrived in Zwaardsrust just a few days later with little incident and even less fanfare, drawing up to the small pier barely long enough for Jasper to disembark and finalise the details of his return before setting off again.

He watched it go for a time, absently pressing the toes of his boots into the sand, transfixed on the vessel as it slowly grew more distant. It was just interesting to watch, that was all. It wasn’t that he was staggeringly nervous about turning inland and facing the next six months of his life on a foreign continent among people he didn’t know, learning magic he had no aptitude for from a venerable old king whose grandson he had tried to murder. More than once. That wasn’t it in the slightest.

Eventually the vessel became so small in the distance that he had to look away, and he turned his back to it with a sigh. He frowned at the damp sand stuck to his shoes, gave up trying to kick it free after about five seconds, and trudged his way off the beach.

There would be a carriage waiting for him when he arrived, Jade had said.

There was _something_ waiting for him, but “carriage” was pushing it a bit. It was little more than a rough wooden open-topped trailer with a sad-looking horse attached. It looked more suited to transporting hay bales and farming tools than people.

There was also a woman standing by the horse, petting its nose. She looked up as Jasper approached, and her face broke into a warm smile. It was an older face, marked with lines of similar smiles but with a weathering to the skin that spoke of many years working outdoors. Her dirt-smeared clothing and old, worn boots said much the same.

“Hullo there!” she called, raising her hand in a cheerful wave. “Sir Jasper, I take it?”

Her voice was as pleasantly common as the rest of her, her vowels strange and round in her thick Drasilian accent. Jasper had never had a particular ear for it, which wasn’t the best realisation to have at that moment.

“Yes, I am,” he said. “Are you to take me to Dundrasil?”

“Aye.” She thumped her chest heartily. “I’m Moira. Sorry your welcome wagon isnae as fancy as I’m sure you’re used to.” She gestured at the cart, and Jasper was relieved to see she had at least some self-awareness as her expression took on a hint of sheepishness. “Resources are a wee bit scarce, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

Jasper nodded and politely asked, “How is the reconstruction coming?”

“Decent enough - I mean, it’s slow going but we’ve got the water and sewage system sorted - _that_ was a rough couple of months, let me tell you - and we’ve managed to fix up some of the buildings on the outskirts to make them actually liveable for the moment, so now it’s mostly a case of clearing rubble in the city itsel’. And then there’s the castle…” Her smile had slowly slipped away as she spoke, as though she had realised for the first time the magnitude of the job at hand. Perhaps she had. She didn’t seem especially bright.

“Well, never mind,” she continued, and the smile returned. “We’ll get there. Now, there’s an inn just up the road. We’ll stay there the night, since I’m sure you’ll be tired. Nae such thing as a guid night’s sleep on a ship, is there?”

Jasper returned her smile affably, although he was pretty sure she had never been on a ship where she’d been afforded a private room as he had.

“We can head out to Dundrasil bright and early,” Moira went on, turning back to her horse, “but we might need to camp along the way, if that’s alright with you. It’s a fair journey, and we’re both no as young as we used to be, so it takes us a wee bit longer, eh?”

For a moment, Jasper thought Moira was referring to _him_ , and he was staggered by her sheer impertinence - but she had placed her hand on her horse’s neck, stroking it fondly and speaking in soft coos, and he flushed at his mistake. She either didn’t notice his abrupt change in colour, or was polite enough not to mention it. He really hoped it was the first one.

* * *

Once Jasper had loaded his bags onto the cart and climbed in beside them - it smelled like _farm_ , he noted with distaste - Moira clambered into the small wooden seat fixed to the front and gave a slight flick of her horse’s reins, coaxing the beast into a walk with a casual familiarity.

“Hold on,” she advised as they set off, but it became quickly apparent to Jasper that he wouldn’t be needing to. The horse moved painfully slowly compared to the muscled steeds Heliodor kept. How Moira had even reached the coast to pick him up in time was beyond him. At this rate, it was likely his six months would be up before he even reached his destination.

Still, he supposed, he could always pass the time another way - like counting every blade of grass they passed as the horse plodded along. There was one. And another. And a third.

Moira began to hum, somehow both tuneless and off key at once.

Jasper sighed, settled as comfortably as he could against his luggage, and resigned himself to watching the Zwaardsrustian scenery go by.

Not that there was much scenery at first.

The path from the pier was fairly narrow, boxed in on either side by high cliff walls so close that Jasper could have reached over the side of the cart and touched them. It must have been later in the day than he’d thought, too, as their going was slowed further by the lack of sun directly overhead, forcing Moira to take them carefully along the dim path. (Although “careful” seemed to be the only speed the horse was capable of anyway.) The only sign of daylight was a shining strip painted along the very tops of the cliffs on one side.

It gave the miniature canyon a somewhat cosy feel and, despite his intention to remain as miserable as possible about being transported in a horse-cart like a bale of hay, Jasper felt himself begin to relax. The edge slipped off the stubborn scowl he had levelled at the back of Moira’s head when a soft breeze sang up from the sea and past their little caravan, tousling his hair.

Then Moira ambled them out of the shade, and the cliffs fell away at once to the flatlands of Zwaardsrust proper, and the light hit. Oh, the light _hit_.

Jasper had never had much cause to travel to Zwaardsrust. He had been through the ravaged lands only a handful of times, but not for many years, and always on official business that had required him to keep his head down and his horse at a gallop. He had certainly never travelled in such leisure - if it could be called that - as he did now.

He had been very young when the kingdom had fallen, and so had never experienced it in its unruined glory. Over the years he had endured Hendrik’s endless wistful recountings of its splendour, but he had always taken them as the childish and rose-tinted ramblings of a nostalgic fool.

He had been wrong.

Hendrik had been right.

(Oh, wasn’t he always.)

Thrust out so suddenly into the sunlight, the only thing Jasper could see was gold - glowing, resplendent, a softly rolling sea of burnished beauty on all sides past the humble dirt road they travelled. If the inland ocean had glittered under the sun, then this one _shone_. Jasper had to shield his eyes, finding that he couldn’t look directly at it for too long.

“Aye, the fields are braw this time o’ year,” Moira said. It was like she had read his mind, though when he turned to look at her she was still facing dutifully forward, guiding her horse along.

_The fields_. Jasper looked back at them, recognising as he squinted the gently synchronised sway of them, not as waves, but as stalks of wheat in the breeze; what he’d seen as foamy wave-caps was their fluffy heads.

He had always known Zwaardsrust was famous for its picturesque landscapes and vast golden farmlands. How could he not, with how many times Hendrik had described it in excruciatingly dull detail? Seeing it first hand like this though...it was a lot less dull than he had presumed. It was, as Moira had said, _braw_. Whatever that meant.

Jasper shuffled around, tucking a leg beneath him and angling his body to point towards the view of the fields. He leaned his head against one side of the gently rocking cart and looked out through the slats. Letting his gaze unfocus, the thousands of individual wheat stalks grew soft and smudgy in his eyes until it was as though they had melted together into an ocean proper; like the Goddess herself had taken pity on the ravaged land and poured molten gold over it to bless the people, so that they would always know prosperity. He smiled sardonically at his own frivolous thoughts. He _had_ chucked the book of poems overboard in a fit of petulant annoyance, but it seemed it continued to curse him even now. Then again, if he was to sit there for however long it took for the slowest horse in all of Erdrea to reach their destination, indulging himself in a certain level of mental frivolity wouldn’t kill him. Old age might, though.

So Jasper let his mind wander. He thought of Zwaardsrust, naturally, and what it might be like to live in the quaint, rural landscape it had healed into after the fall of its kingdom. He thought of himself living there as a farmer and almost laughed aloud.

He thought of Hendrik living there as a farmer and _did_ laugh aloud, though he managed to wrangle it into a casual throat-clearing cough so Moira wouldn’t question it.

It was such a ridiculously fitting image he had conjured: Hendrik in an ugly flannel shirt that didn’t at all match the rest of him, straw hat perched on top of his head, hair cut short for convenience. He would probably rear horses. He would probably _smell_ of horses.

Absurd. Jasper cast the thought aside immediately.

But though the clashing outfit disappeared from his mind - and with it Hendrik’s muscular chest straining against the flimsy shirt buttons - it was instead replaced with gleaming black armour; the glittering backdrop of the wheat fields fading to the familiar grey of Heliodor’s walls as Jasper’s mind provided him with a new thought.

A memory.

* * *

“Jasper! Jasper!”

Jasper turned at the sound of his name. He would have turned anyway; the cadence of the footfalls running towards him was familiar, as was the clattering their owner’s distinctive garb made with every step.

But with his name being bellowed for all of Heliodor to hear, both Jasper and the young soldier accompanying him - Alex, or Andy, or whatever his name was - as well as several of the people milling around the city gates turned to the source of the noise.

Hendrik screeched to a halt in front of them. (Though not literally, given the impeccable shape he always kept his armour in.) He was panting a little, a sheen of sweat across his brow, and Jasper was struck with the sudden, horrific notion that he had run all the way from the castle.

“Jasper,” Hendrik said again, at a more respectable volume.

“...Hendrik,” Jasper replied. He had not seen Hendrik since—the previous afternoon. He held the strap of his bag a little tighter. “Did you need something?”

Hendrik’s posture shifted. Jasper hadn’t noticed he was holding himself any differently from usual until he suddenly wasn’t, and then he was all straight lines and perpendicular elbows, standing to attention. “I just wanted to...see you off. You declined to say your farewells before you left the castle. The princess informed me—”

“The princess informed _me_ ,” Jasper cut in, “that this trip had been specially arranged for my benefit and was a limited-time offer. I saw no point in footling around with goodbyes.”

Hendrik quieted. To the side of them, Alex-or-Andy fidgeted. Jasper gestured at him. “Go and check that the horses are ready. I will join you in a moment.”

The boy squeaked in the affirmative and disappeared so quickly he near enough left a trail of dust in his wake.

Jasper cast a furtive glance around the street, and sighed in relief when he saw that most of the onlookers had returned to whatever they had been doing before one of Heliodor’s finest knights had barrelled down the road with all the subtlety of a troll in a china shop.

For a long moment there was that silence again - the _unleisurely_ one - broken only by the bustle of the streets. A group of entertainers were singing some upbeat shanty in the square, and the sound, though muted, carried even to where the two knights stood to hang in the air like a comical set piece.

Hendrik stood stock still. Jasper tried to, but restlessness wouldn’t leave him and had him shifting subtly from foot to foot. He hadn’t meant to snap. He never did. Now he was silently rolling some words around in his mouth, wondering if he should speak them aloud. They all tasted oddly bitter.

Before he could make his decision, Hendrik spoke again.

“I am sorry.”

The words came as such a shock that Jasper promptly forgot what any of his were going to be, swallowing them down and leaving only one on his tongue: “W-What?”

Up until now, he had been keeping his gaze somewhere off past Hendrik’s left shoulder, but now Jasper found himself looking right at him. Hendrik looked... _painfully_ awkward (which wasn’t a new development - he was awkward quite frequently) but Jasper couldn’t figure out why (which was).

Hendrik elaborated, “I was out of line yesterday. I pried into things that were not my business, and you were right that I do not understand— I would like to, truly I would, but I am just...not sure how to go about it. I fear I always put my foot in my mouth. And then to go to the _princess_ , of all people— I only wished to help you, but I am ashamed of my own lack of self-discipline. I...I always seem to lose a great deal of that when it comes to you.”

Hendrik’s eyes had been trained respectfully on the ground as he fumbled through his apology, but now he raised them, and Jasper missed his chance to look away. Now he was trapped in the hefty earnestness of Hendrik’s gaze. His heart fluttered traitorously in his chest.

“I hope you will not resent me for my actions,” Hendrik said. “At least not more than I deserve.”

“You don’t deserve that,” Jasper said - _heard himself say_ , oh Goddess above, what was he doing, where was his brain when his mouth so clearly needed it?

Now it was Hendrik’s turn for the startling display of idiotic lip-flapping. “What?”

“You don’t deserve my resentment.” Wonderful, he was still talking—wait, he should correct that. “ _Any_ resentment.” Marginally better. At least he still had some control over his faculties. Or so he thought. His mouth seemed to have other ideas. “You know as well as I do that I wouldn’t have sought help on my own.” He bit his tongue to prevent incriminating himself any further.

“Oh,” Hendrik said. And then, again, “Oh.”

Jasper knew he should say something else. He _had_ to say something else, because the silence was about to bear down again full-force, but for an entirely different reason.

The trouble was that he had just come dangerously close to actual honesty. He didn’t do that very often, and especially not when his own... _feelings_ were involved.

“I’ll write,” he settled on eventually.

Hendrik visibly brightened. It looked regrettably wonderful on him. “Yes. I shall as well.”

“I should...go. A—” He realised he still didn’t know the young soldier’s name, and gestured vaguely instead. “He’s waiting for me.”

“Right. Yes. You should go.”

Jasper nodded and turned away. That was it, then. He could leave, and not have to think about Hendrik for the next six months. One problem at a time was enough.

Except Hendrik said, “Jasper,” again, quiet, just a soft exhalation of his name, and he was hopeless to do anything but turn back. He saw Hendrik’s arm lower back to his side from where it had seemed to be outstretched, like he’d been reaching for—

“Take care of yourself,” Hendrik said.

The entertainers’ raucous song finally ended to a cacophony of cheers, and when they too faded the air felt too quiet. Jasper swallowed. His fingers twitched where they were hooked around his bag strap, and he squeezed it tighter before they could betray the sudden, stupid urge he was refusing to acknowledge.

“I’ll see you in six months,” he said, and then he left.

* * *

It didn’t take them as long as Jasper had feared to reach their lodgings for the night - the sun was dipping low into dusk, but it was still light enough to go about one’s business without the need for lamps.

The business of the portly woman standing outside of the sign that read _Warrior’s Rest Inn_ was, apparently, sweeping dirt from a dirt road. She paused in her futile task to greet them as Moira turned the cart in, leaning on her broom to squint up at them.

“Welcome to the Warrior’s Rest, travellers! Enjoy your—oh, Moira! Back already?”

It was probably not a jab aimed at the state of the horse, but Jasper allowed himself a smirk anyway. He needed it after the awful spiralling path his thoughts had wandered down, leaving him feeling sour and his chest aching hollowly.

“Aye,” Moira called back and jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Takin’ this one to Dundrasil. He’s helpin’ with the rebuilding.”

He was absolutely not helping with the rebuilding, but Jasper politely popped his head over the side of the cart anyway. “Good evening.”

The woman smiled warmly at him. “Always nice to see new faces join the cause. Lord Robert will be ever so pleased.”

“Ah, yes,” Jasper agreed. Jade hadn’t mentioned anything about having to do manual labour. Perhaps on purpose. As much as he loved her, he wouldn’t exactly put such mischief past her.

* * *

While Moira was tacking up her horse and cart for the night, Jasper took a look around the inn grounds. They were...meagre, with not much in the way of amenities outside of the inn itself. A stream murmured along to the rear of the building, which was pleasant enough if you liked that sort of thing. Jasper thought it would probably just keep him awake.

The golden fields stretched out in all directions past the road they had come in on, and on one side Jasper could see all the way down to the ocean.

“I’m going to take a walk,” he announced.

Moira turned from where she’d been ripping hay apart. “Would you not rather eat first?”

He shook his head. “I’ll get something when I return. I just want to stretch my legs.”

“Fair enough. I’ll get us a couple of rooms. Just mind and be careful of sabrecats.”

Jasper summoned his most reasonable smile and gestured at his swords at his waist. Moira nodded, seemingly satisfied, and went back to her horse.

* * *

He wasn’t really sure why he had wanted to go for a walk. It was true he felt a little stiff, having been cramped in a cart for far longer than he’d have liked - he could still smell it too, like it was following him - but he had worked his legs back to normal after just a few minutes.

And yet, he kept walking.

He followed the road back the way they had come for a bit, walking between the wobbly lines the cart wheels had left, and then an odd fancy took hold of him and he veered off and walked straight into one of the wheat fields.

It was not as nice as it looked, which was a bit of a let down.

Though the stalks looked invitingly soft, they were in fact more than a little rough and scratchy, catching at Jasper’s sleeves as he pushed through them. He was probably ruining the crop, he thought, dislodging bits as he stamped through that floated up into the air around him, leaving him walking through a cloud of shining crop dust that irritated his eyes. There were probably insects everywhere too; who even _knew_ what could be scurrying around under his feet and trying to crawl up his ankles?

Hendrik would hate that.

_Enough_ , Jasper thought violently.

He pressed on with stubbornness and gritted teeth, and eventually he found himself at the edge of the field, and at the edge of the land itself. It dropped down more sharply than he had expected, and as he stood with his toes dangerously close to the edge he looked out over the ocean and still didn’t know what he had been hoping to find. Certainly the dusky waters didn’t hold any answers, and neither did the brisk wind that blew in from them and forced him back a safer step. Behind him the wheat stalks rustled in unison, whispering secrets among themselves that Jasper wasn’t privy to. He turned back towards them.

The light was rapidly waning as the sun sank below the horizon, and sombre gloom cut across the fields like a knife, dimming their glow. Only the side nearest the road still had any light to it. 

Jasper felt something in him pull towards it. It wasn’t as base as an instinct, nor quick like a reflex - it had a kind of painful yearning to it, like an old, bad habit.

He had never been good at breaking habits.

He took a step towards the light, and—

A sharp, brief pain sliced across the back of his hand. He swore and brought it to his face: a bright red scratch, beading with blood at one end, looked back at him. He had probably caught it on one of the stalks. It stung, not badly but persistently.

He held his other hand to it, and thought, _Heal_.

Nothing happened. He tutted. Of course not.

When he looked up again, the sun had set almost completely and the light had gone from the fields altogether, leaving him standing in cold shadow.

Jasper sighed, wiped his hand against his tunic, and began the walk back to the inn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> scots translation notes:  
>  **guid** (pronounced "gid") - good  
>  **braw** \- usually used to describe how something looks or the weather; means "nice" or "pleasing," etc.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jasper finally reaches Dundrasil, and has a rather surprising reunion.

Jasper didn’t sleep that night.

He had, almost. With a belly full of cheap country food and a salve slathered on his cut hand courtesy of Moira, a sudden tiredness had come across him that had him retiring earlier than normal. 

His room was tiny, with little more than a plain, white-sheeted bed and a small nightstand. But compared to the back of a horse-cart it was heaven, and he had collapsed into it without a care, dozing almost before he hit the pillow.

Then the nightmares had him kicking awake in the small hours. Of all the nights. He really could have done without them.

They were a semi-usual occurrence, but that didn’t make it any easier for him to draw breath past the manic pulsing of his heart, ducking his head down between his knees until the nausea and encroaching blackness stopped threatening to force him into the wrong kind of unconsciousness.

Eventually it calmed enough for him to stand, and he wobbled to the window, yanking the curtain open and jiggling the latch until it gave. The window swung open with a squeak, cold air rushing in for him to gulp down like a man drowning, relishing how it washed over his suddenly feverish skin.

He slumped against the window frame, counting breaths in the way he had learned until his chest stopped hurting.

His dream had been of that day on Yggdrasil, yet a different day altogether. A day that had never come to pass. A day where he had succeeded, and the Luminary had been bested, and the World Tree had plummeted to her death. Hers, and many others.

His, a little later.

He always became a beast in those dreams. Horned and winged and utterly vulgar, his body swollen with darkness, like he’d been crafted in a poor image of Mordegon himself.

A monster.

The first few times, he had found himself checking to make sure his body was still his own - still human - but now he knew better. His monstrousness was locked safely in his own subconscious, where no one but he had to bear witness to it.

Where no one else had to be frightened of it.

A breeze ruffled his tunic and he shivered. With the heat of sheer panic leaving him, his body temperature tended to rapidly drop, and so he pulled the window closed again and settled onto the bed, bundling himself in the thin sheets. He didn’t lie down. Sleep was long since lost to him, and so he sat upright and stared out into the black, star-speckled sky.

He never understood the dreams. They were most likely a random collection of his subconscious fears and worries, as most nightmares were, but they had always seemed too repetitive, too _organised_ to be that alone. He had once tried to glean meaning from them, but he knew nothing of dreamtelling, and he did not plan to spill the contents of his head to any of the soothsayers who visited Heliodor to ply their devious trade.

Sometimes he thought they were tricks played on him by Yggdrasil herself, as if to say _look how much worse your life could have been, now get a grip._ Even now her farthest reaching branches were just visible in the distance, jutting annoyingly into his small square of view with their constant celestial glow.

He scowled deliberately in their direction, and after a while flung the sheets away and set about dressing himself.

* * *

He was sipping at his fourth cup of tea when Moira plodded downstairs a little after sunrise.

She dropped into the seat opposite him. “Och, here I was chapping at your door, thinking you had slept in! You ready to go after some breakfast?”

Jasper managed to hold back a wince at the volume of her voice. “Yes.”

“What d’you fancy?” Moira asked. “This place does the _best_ bacon, I swear to—”

“Ah,” Jasper cut in, “I prefer sweet breakfasts, actually.”

Moira looked at him.

“Greasy food doesn’t sit well with me,” he heard himself explain. Stop that.

Moira looked some more. The beginnings of a smile were tugging at the corners of her mouth, but before Jasper could decide how to gauge her reaction, she had gotten to her feet again. “Right you are. Pancakes it is.”

Jasper opened his mouth around a retort, but she was already gone, wandering across to the counter to put in their order. He huffed. Pancakes. As if he were a _child_. If it had been french toast, perhaps, with a generous helping of ricotta and sliced strawberries; or a sweet cinnamon omelette, with a berry compote on the side and drizzled in syrup and nuts…

But _pancakes_. He huffed again. He was a grown man.

His stomach grumbled in disagreement. It liked pancakes just fine.

* * *

They packed up and set off after breakfast. Despite his misgivings, Jasper had enjoyed the pancakes a great deal, and now with something lining his stomach and a comfortable amount of sugar circulating in his veins, he felt more himself. Even if he had had to watch Moira absolutely demolish a heaping plate of bacon, eggs, something that looked like sausage meat cut into squares, and a few horrific looking fried and black-charred circles of...well, he hadn’t asked. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Now he found himself settled back into the horse-cart, propped up on his luggage and swaying gently side-to-side in time with the horse’s slow steps (its name was Tulip, he had discovered to his great amusement).

Moira chatted more as they travelled, about the history of the landscape, about Dundrasil and its rebuilding, about the weather, about herself. Jasper was content to tune most of it out to a bearable background buzz, until she started asking about him; if he had always been a knight and what life under oath was like, if he liked living in Heliodor. He gave neutral, polite answers. She didn’t need to know about his life.

It was when she asked him if he had volunteered to come help with the reconstruction, or if King Carnelian had chosen him, that he realised that she didn’t actually know his true motives.

And, well, he wasn’t about to tell her.

“I volunteered,” he said. “As someone who was there when Dundrasil fell, I feel it is only my duty to assist in its restoration.” As someone who had tried to hinder, sabotage and murder its rightful prince, he probably should have felt more guilty about the audacity of his untruths, or how readily they rolled off his tongue.

“Well, that’s guid of you,” Moira said. “Every little helps. But I do wish they’d have sent more than one of you, nae matter how strong or famous you might be. There’s an awfy load of rubble to shift.”

Jasper frowned at her lack of decency to respond with enthusiasm to his lies and said no more.

* * *

After a while of silent travel, Moira tugged on Tulip’s reins and the horse slowed its gentle gait to a complete stop.

Jasper looked up and over the side of the cart, a question already forming on his lips, and then he saw the ruins.

The golden fields had slowly retreated behind them as they had gone on, and though a few mills were still visible on the higher ground, the immediate area around the path they took was mostly empty; plain, overgrown wilderness, the soil perhaps still not healthy enough for farming.

Now they had reached a fork in the road, and between the fork stretched a vast area of utter destruction. Rubble and debris of what once could have been walls littered the landscape, with pools of vile, unnatural liquid bubbling between them. There was no birdsong any longer, no rustling and scuffling of local monsters, nary even a breeze through the trees that had stood through the carnage that toppled their surroundings; but it was silent here in more than just sound. It was lifeless.

Jasper looked to Moira. She had her head bowed as if in prayer. It felt wrong to disturb her.

He could imagine what it was they now looked upon, anyway. What it had once been.

“I like to take a minute here whenever I pass,” Moira said softly, opening her eyes. When she turned back to look at Jasper her face was brimming with genuine grief. “I hope you dinnae mind. It feels...right to. I’m no from Zwaardsrust, but they were our neighbours. I still remember when it happened.” She tried for a smile, but missed somewhat. “You’ll be too young, though.”

Jasper nodded. “I was just a child when it happened. But my...my friend, he came from here. He was…” It felt wrong, suddenly, to be discussing Hendrik’s personal affairs, and so Jasper quickly finished, “badly affected.”

Moira just nodded her understanding and turned to face the ruins again. She said nothing and took up Tulip’s reins. She turned the cart down the left fork, and Jasper watched the ruins of Zwaardsrust castle pass them by slowly. A strange feeling settled thickly in his throat. He barely even remembered the news of the fall - recalled better a scruffy orphan being nudged towards him and urged into friendship, sleep broken by ceaseless crying and reading aloud by candlelight until his throat was just as raw - but he knew with a loathsome intimacy of the being that had incited the destruction. 

He had long forgotten any prayers he had learned as a child, but he bowed his head for a moment anyway.

* * *

The crossing into the Dundrasil region was unremarkable, signalled with nothing but a slight drop in the temperature. They had briefly passed along a narrow, open path with nothing but open sea on either side, but as soon as they hit Dundrasil proper the cliffs sprung up around them once more, as if to keep one ravaged kingdom separate from another - and yet, it was distinctly colder through Jasper’s thin layers. He looked up accusingly at the misty layer of cloud that had drifted overhead, leaving the sun a dimmer, hazy circle of light. 

He had always heard tales of Dundrasil’s unpredictable weather; rain for days in summer and even more in winter, cold thick fog rolling up from the ocean in the mornings. He hoped they were exaggerations, for he had not packed much in the way of heavier clothing.

* * *

By the time they stopped for the day, the sun had all but disappeared completely until it was impossible to tell if it was setting or if the cloud cover had just grown thick enough to blot it out. Though he had dug his cloak out of his bag and buried himself under it a few hours prior, Jasper still felt the unpleasant evening chill. His hands grew steadily colder no matter how many times he rubbed them together, and he suddenly craved the tepid evening air that blew up from the Emerald Coast. Heliodor may be far from perfect, but at least it was warm.

The ruins of what had once been Dundrasil castle loomed in the distance, but Moira had pointed them away from it and taken them instead over a bridge. A cabin cropped up ahead of them not long after, and it was at its steps that Moira pulled Tulip to a stop.

“Right, this is us for the night,” she announced.

Jasper leaned up over the side of the cart as she dismounted and came around to unattach it. “But Dundrasil is close. Shouldn’t we keep going?”

“We wouldnae make it afore nightfall,” Moira said. “Monsters might no be looking for a fight all the time these days, but they’re still used to having a run of the place. I’d rather no risk it. And Tulip doesnae like the dark.” She looked up from where she was carefully unhooking the cart and grinned.

The horse. The horse didn’t like the dark. Goddess forbid they hurt the poor thing’s feelings.

* * *

With the cart unfastened and hefted over to the side of the cabin, and Tulip safely tied up alongside it, the two travellers were free to do as they pleased.

It had grown dark much quicker than it had the night before, and with the thick clouds hiding the moon and stars there was very little natural light to go by. Jasper frowned. He had been thinking of going for another walk, if only to work some feeling back into his number extremities. Instead, he found himself sitting on the cabin steps bundled in his cloak while Moira cooked inside. It probably would have served him better to remain inside as well, where there were four walls and a fire to keep the cold away, but peace and quiet sounded better, especially when he could still hear the muffled monotone of Moira’s attempt at singing while she worked. Aside from that he had found his quiet, rumbling around him in that twilit way of trilling insects and hidden creatures.

There was a Goddess statue in the cabin grounds too - a travellers’ rest stop, Moira had assured him, when he had queried if they were breaking and entering into someone’s home - and so even if there were any monsters nearby who had a hankering for some free horse meat, they would be unlikely to even approach the an area that was protected in such a way.

As if she knew he was thinking about her, Tulip snorted. Jasper looked over to where she was tied, but he could only see her rear from his position.

It was simply his knightly responsibility that had him standing and walking around to the side of the cabin to check on the horse. Not curiosity. Certainly not even the slightest pang of worry.

Though any worries he might have had - which were _none_ \- were quickly unfounded as he rounded the corner and found Tulip with her nose shoved into the feed bag that hung from the cart, munching away contentedly. Clearly her snort had been one of excitement and not fear. They were probably easy to mix up for a stupid animal.

Jasper's hands fell away from where he had been poised to draw his swords. He sighed and approached her.

“You probably shouldn’t eat all of that,” he said, prying the feed bag away from Tulip’s face. It came free easily, and he swung it inside the cart and away from her. She tossed her head and snorted again. “Oh, don’t start. I’ve dealt with worse than you in my life, believe me.”

Tulip gave a small nicker as Jasper held his hand out to her, her ears flicking forward. She pressed her nose against his offered palm.

He absolutely did not smile. “Apology accepted, I suppose.” He brushed off the fodder that had stuck to her muzzle and looked at her properly for the first time. She was old, there was no mistaking that. Not the largest horse, either. But despite her age and size she still had strength, muscle rippling across her chest as she moved to nuzzle further into Jasper’s hands. Clearly she was used to farm work, especially since she pulled a fairly heavy cart without complaint. (Jasper’s shoulders still ached from how much effort it had taken to help Moira move it behind the cabin.)

And just as clear was how Moira doted on the beast: a jacket embroidered with tiny tulips had been fastened over her and she had been tied up on the side of the cabin towards the cliffs, away from the chill of the open air across the river.

And, Jasper noticed with no small amount of disdain, she had a _night light_. Because she was afraid of the dark.

It wasn’t even a regular lantern - though, he supposed, leaving a burning flame unattended next to a horse would be dangerous. But still, for it to be a magic lantern, flameless and glowing with a soft orb of imbued light... Those things were not cheap.

“For Yggdrasil’s sake,” Jasper muttered. 

He was cursed to be surrounded by idiots who loved their horses like children, it seemed. Hendrik coddled Obsidian to a fault as well, to the point that Jasper was sure the beast only tolerated any attention that wasn’t his master’s out of politeness. It was ridiculous, the way Hendrik cooed over something twice the height of most people like it was a baby. If any of the recruits heard how he went on, his reputation as a gruff and intimidating general would be in tatters.

“What’re you smilin’ about?” Moira asked, and Jasper almost jumped out of his skin.

As he turned quickly, dropping his hands from Tulip’s nose, he realised he had failed to notice that there was a window directly behind him, or that it opened right into the kitchenette area of the cabin. Moira hung out of it, regarding him with an amused expression.

“I wasn’t—nothing,” he objected. He put a hand to his face, pressing firmly at the sides of his mouth to make sure there was no smile to be found.

Tulip whinnied. Moira grinned. He had a feeling neither of them believed him.

“I take it the greedy besom was at the feed again,” Moira said. “Honestly, I take my eyes off her for five minutes…” She sighed, and gestured at Jasper as she began to turn away. A pleasant-ish smell wafted past her and out of the window. “Anyway, come on in, dinner’s ready.”

* * *

Dinner turned out to be rehydrated meat in a broth made from a powdered packet. It was salty, sharp, and overall unappetising, but Jasper ate it anyway. It reminded him of being young, in a strange way; of overnight group training camps out on the Emerald Coast, burning fish over a campfire and trying to figure out which mushrooms wouldn’t kill them if they ate them. That was probably where he got his vehement dislike for the things.

After dinner, Moira produced some crushed herbs and tipped them into two cups of boiling water. She offered him one, and had the audacity to call it tea.

It was awful, but he sat out on the steps with the steaming cup heating his chilled hands and sipped at it just to be polite. Well perhaps not _awful_ \- beneath the initial taste of dirty leaf water, there was a warming flavour that spread over the back of his tongue and down his throat, not unlike the hot tang of ginger. But it could still have used some sugar.

Jasper looked out across the river and up the hill to where the ruins of Dundrasil jutted imposingly into the sky, the destroyed and desolate castle towers visible only as haunting silhouettes against the hazy clouds. Below them came a soft, distant glow like fire embers; a bonfire, perhaps. He doubted the rebuilding efforts had included such indulgences as indoor heating facilities yet.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, he would be up there beside that bonfire, beneath those towers, to meet with the man who would teach him the art of magical mending.

But would he? Lord Robert had agreed when Jade asked, of course, but most people tended to agree when Jade asked them anything. Perhaps the old king wouldn’t even give Jasper the time of day for all he had put him and his Yggdrasil-blessed grandson through, and would use him for manual labour for six months and send him home again with nothing to show for his assumed studies except a bad back. 

Perhaps this was a punishment rather than an opportunity.

Jasper snorted derisively and took a gulp of the so-called tea. He had to remember that not everyone was so cynical and misanthropic. From what he knew of the man, Lord Robert was just as likely to celebrate his arrival with genuine joy and fuss over him and his progress every hour of every day.

Jasper wasn’t sure which one would be worse.

* * *

Whatever grievances he might have had about the flavour of Moira’s tea, he had to admit it had incredible soporific properties. He had found himself taking a second cup when he had gone inside again, and then he had dropped into bed and out of consciousness in a matter of minutes, even with Moira snoring up a storm across the room from him. (He hadn’t shared quarters with someone else in...it had to be near enough twenty years. That a middle-aged Drasilian woman he had no attachment to was the first to breach such a barrier in so long was certainly a thought.)

There were no nightmares that night.

* * *

Jasper blinked awake slowly to a particularly annoying sunbeam lying directly across his face. He sat up just enough to notice that Moira was gone, her bed made, and then slumped back again to enjoy what would probably be a painfully short moment of blissful silence.

Moira had cracked the window nearest the beds, and the soft outside sounds filtered in - birds, the river, the gentle whistling of the breeze through the old wood of the cabin, Tulip’s little content noises and Moira’s quiet murmurings to her. 

As his eyes slid closed again, Jasper found himself not even minding the sun on his face, bright as it was. It warmed him against the morning chill, and he turned towards it, bunching the sheets up around himself like a cosy nest.

Until he remembered where he was.

He flung himself out of bed, thundering to the door and wrenching it open. Moira and Tulip both looked at him with the same wide-eyed expression from where they stood, the horse presumably grazing and Moira brushing her coat. But whereas Tulip quickly decided food was more interesting than Jasper’s bedhead, Moira’s expression morphed into an amused grin.

“Sleeping beauty finally awakens!” she announced.

Jasper felt himself blush. He glanced up across the river, past the ruins of Dundrasil in the distance, and saw what he had expected to - the sun, already crested past the top of the high cliffs that bordered the region. It had to be mid-morning at the earliest. 

“I-I didn’t mean to oversleep,” he babbled, “I don’t usually—”

Moira’s great, booming laugh cut him off. “Dinnae worry yoursel’ about it! My tea seems to have that effect if you’re no used to it.” Jasper briefly wondered what on Erdrea she put in it and if he should, in fact, worry about it. “You must’ve needed the rest.”

“I…” He supposed he did. Between the bad dreams and the fact that he couldn’t shake the constant thoughts of what might await him when he reached Dundrasil proper, he hadn’t slept too well since he left Heliodor. He looked at Moira. “I’ll get ready to leave.”

* * *

It took them little more than an hour and a half to reach Dundrasil, even with Tulip’s slow pace. They really had been close. They could have just pushed on even without daylight, Jasper thought, since the road was fairly straight and still in decent enough condition.

Moira had been looking out for her horse, she had said. But Tulip hadn’t seemed particularly stressed to have been left outside in the dark by herself, night light or no. And then there had been Moira’s comment about Jasper “needing the rest.” He pulled at the skin beneath his eyes - were his dark circles _that_ noticeable? Perhaps she had just been...being nice. Perhaps she had noticed Jasper was tired, and had thought to let him rest in a decent bed and meet with Lord Robert and whoever else he might have to deal with on a full night’s sleep.

Jasper didn’t really know what to do with that thought.

So he stopped thinking about it.

* * *

“Perfect timing,” Moira said as she brought Tulip to a stop at the outskirts of the old city. It was still mostly in ruin, but there was a sizeable group of people working away even along this small outer area, and some of the buildings had undergone basic reconstruction as Moira had said. Wisps of smoke wafted up from some of their makeshift chimneys, but the effect of budding civilisation was lessened by the tents that were dotted around between the patched-up houses.

In a large open area that had been left in the centre, close to the walkway up to what had probably been the wealthier quarters, sat a large - currently unlit - bonfire, as Jasper had suspected.

Around it some long tables had been set up, and off to the side there was some sort of canopied cooking area, with what looked like a few clay ovens and an almost comically big pot that was bubbling away. A shockingly tantalising aroma wafted over from there, and as Jasper hopped off the cart Moira caught his eye and grinned.

“Lunchtime,” she said.

Jasper looked across at the throngs of people that crowded the tables, heard the rowdy noise that was coming from them, and frowned. This, too, reminded him of his youth: when he had to eat with the other knights-in-training, crammed along tables with elbows jutting into his ribs and knocking the food from his fork. He tried not to sigh too audibly.

“I’ll get Tulip fed and watered,” Moira was saying, handing Jasper his luggage, “so you away and do the same. You’ll be hungry.” He was - he had skipped whatever breakfast Moira had planned on account of his oversleeping. “And by the size of that crowd, it must be the prince’s turn the day. He’ll be making his mum’s stew. Everyone always goes aff their heid for it.”

Jasper’s eyes widened. ‘The prince?’ A _prince_? He scrambled to compile a mental list of all the princes he knew. Surely it couldn’t be that moron from Gallopolis after all, could it? Goddess help both of them if it was. The people might not even complain if he tried to murder this one. Either that, or—

“Oh, speak of the devil,” Moira said, and Jasper saw her raise an arm to wave a second before his eyes locked onto the figure pushing through the crowds towards them, leaving the hungry people behind to descend upon the food as they saw fit.

Jasper felt his stomach bottom out, any appetite he may have had disappearing along with it.

A prince. Lord Robert’s other pupil.

It was the Luminary.

* * *

“Your Highness,” Moira greeted as the Luminary came to a halt in front of them. “On lunch duty again?”

The boy’s cheeks puffed out in a childish pout. “It’s just ‘Eleven,’ Moira.” 

He still looked as much of a farm boy as he always had; for being a Luminary there was nothing luminous about him at all. He had filled out a bit, though, especially from when Jasper had cornered him in Gondolia what felt so long ago. (Trailing him and his friends from the shadows hadn’t afforded much opportunity to keep an eye on the boy’s muscle mass, and Jasper’s memory was unfortunately - or perhaps fortunately - a little fuzzy concerning their last bout atop Yggdrasil and what had come after, until he had been let out of the cell he had been crammed in. Heliodor really needed to upgrade the comfort level of their prison.)

Jasper watched the Luminary’s hand come up to his face, and the mark emblazoned across the back of it. He scratched at his cheek. “But I’ll have to tell my mum how popular her recipes are,” he said. “She’ll love that.” His fake frown was gone, replaced with gormless modesty and a smile to match.

He exchanged a few more pleasantries with Moira, scratched Tulip behind her ratty ears, and then waved them off as Moira went off to settle the horse in the stables.

And then, Jasper was left alone with the Luminary.

“Jasper,” the boy said. There was a stiffness to both his voice and his frame now, Jasper noted with inappropriate satisfaction. He tried for a smile, but that came out crooked too. “I’m glad you made it.”

“Luminary,” Jasper said in return. He did not say he was glad to be here. “I...did not expect to see you here.”

The Luminary frowned - a real one this time, perplexed, his silly overgrown eyebrows drawing together. They weren't the only overgrown things, Jasper noted with no small amount of chagrin, as the boy had also grown taller. Taller than he had been before. Taller than Jasper, despite having the handicap of being half his age. Jasper frowned back.

“Just ‘Eleven’ is fine,” the Luminary said. Eleven said. “But...did Jade not tell you I was here?”

“She did not,” Jasper said. The realisation didn’t so much hit him as it did spread steadily through his veins like a particularly nasty poison, and he levelled himself with a slow breath. If Jade wasn’t his princess, he would have been tempted to think some unsavoury things about her.

Eleven sighed. “Of course she didn’t. She’s probably having a good laugh about this right about now.”

That, they could both agree on.

Eleven tried for a second smile, and hit closer to the mark this time. Jasper still didn’t feel inclined to mirror it.

“I am to meet Lord Robert for—”

“Have some lunch first?” Eleven said—suggested, really, with how his tone curved upwards to turn it into a disgustingly hopeful question. “Ra— Grandad’s a bit busy this morning, and you can meet some of the others. And...my mum’s stew is good?”

“I’m sure it is,” Jasper agreed, deadpan. When Eleven just blinked at him, he heaved a sigh and picked up his bag to sling it over his shoulder. He gestured at the uncomfortably large group still hovering around the cooking area. “Lead the way, Luminary.”

The boy’s eyebrows lowered, and he fixed Jasper with a look.

Jasper bit back another sigh, and amended, “Eleven.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tfw it takes five chapters to reach the setting where the main bulk of the fic actually takes place... u_u  
> also, i cut two full scenes out of this chapter and it is _still_ 5k words because i _cannot_ shut up.
> 
> scots slang translation notes:  
>  **besom** (pronounced/alternatively spelled as bizzum): scolding term for a misbehaving girl, though i've personally seen it used for any gender. and horses, apparently. usually(?) used non-seriously or affectionately. (seemingly in non-scots english it is a broom? wild.)  
>  **aff their heid** (heid pronounced heed): off their head. i think this is fairly obvious but google tells me it's a british idiom so just in case - it means either just plain crazy, or very very enthusiastic about something. as moira uses it in this chapter, she means the latter.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now finally at his destination, Jasper meets his mentor at last. And a couple others, not all of whom are happy to see him...

There were too many people. There were far too many people.

There were many people in Heliodor too, but Jasper knew how to categorise them. The king and Jade, the royal advisors, Hendrik, the other knights, the less-important other knights and castle staff; then the civilians, the middle-class and lower-class and lower-than-low class.

Here, crammed among people of all ages and dialects who each carried themselves differently but somehow in the same unguarded way, Jasper was at a bit of a loss.

He could act the part when the situation called for it and he enjoyed the attention often given to him, but he had never been a people person, not truly. Especially not when said people were entirely ignorant of his status or how they should be conducting themselves in his presence, and instead crowded him with over-friendly claps on the shoulder that he couldn’t brush off, given that his hands were busy being shaken almost off his wrists. Faces and names passed so quickly he couldn’t possibly match them together, and then a bowl of something meaty and rich was shoved into his hands and dozens of expectant gazes fell upon him as he gingerly took the fork to his lips.

And then, less gingerly, continued.

It _was_ good stew, he would give the Luminary that much.

Speaking of the Luminary, it was he who saved Jasper, (again,) much to his displeasure; the crowd parted unquestioningly to let the boy through so that he might free Jasper from any further chummy back-slaps or ladles of stew.

The boy was ever blunt and honest, but there was this strange, newer keenness to him as well; an intuition that Jasper couldn’t wrap his head around. He certainly hadn’t been that way back in Gondolia - then, he had stumbled around with all the subtlety of a brick, carving through Jasper’s men with brute force. It had been plain to see he’d had no other thoughts than those of saving his captured friend, and it was only the combined efforts of his entourage that had afforded them all escape.

Jasper had first noticed his change that day on Yggdrasil. Though some parts of the encounter remained stubbornly fuzzy to him, he remembered facing the Luminary and his friends, and having the powers given to him by Mordegon cut through and dispelled with a simplicity that shouldn’t have been possible. There had been that strange sword too, the one he had never seen the boy wield before in all the time he had kept watch on him, nor again since. It had looked wrong in his hands; bulky and ugly and sinister, more fitting to a true Darkspawn than a Luminary. But it had been powerful.

It had saved his life.

Jasper also remembered Carnelian’s - Mordegon’s - blade coming for his throat. The deadly slice of it zeroing in. How, in that strange way that approaching tragedy often wrought, he had been frozen, unable to react. The mask of his king contorting into indifferent disgust as Mordegon prepared to strike down his most loyal pawn in the most final way.

Then the shriek of metal when, instead of meeting pliant flesh, his executioner had faced solid, unrelenting blackness as that terrible sword and the Luminary attached to the end of it leapt between them.

That was where things got blurry. Jasper remembered being hoisted to his feet from where his knees must have buckled, and restrained by a strong, familiar grip. He remembered voices and movement and, oddly specifically, the weight of his pendant sitting against his chest.

He recalled too the Luminary’s eyes meeting his, the solid and unwavering blue, uncannily wise beyond their years. Like the boy knew things that Jasper couldn’t even begin to imagine. Like he had met Death and decided to change Its mind.

And then Jasper had blacked out.

* * *

“Sorry about them,” Eleven said. “They get a bit excited whenever someone new shows up to help.”

The pair had broken away from the group and made their way into what had formerly been Dundrasil’s upper quarters, though now it too lay in ruin like the rest. There had been less work done here: the buildings remained fallen and unlivable, and there were far fewer of the volunteers’ tents pitched around. A few small groups of workers hefted debris into wheelbarrows to create clearings, and as Eleven passed they called greetings which he returned cheerfully.

“I know that’s not why you’re here,” the boy added quickly, turning half towards Jasper, “so don’t worry. They really won’t annoy you much if you tell them not to.”

His eyes still held that odd sharpness even now, like they could cut clean through Jasper if Eleven only wished it, but their blueness was reminiscent of the open sky, unclouded and serene. It was a strange combination. Jasper wouldn’t say he was unsettled by it, but there was something almost inhuman about such omniscient depths to such youthful features that he certainly didn’t care for. Mark and powers aside, that gaze was the biggest clue that Eleven was not just a normal boy.

“I am capable of manual labour, believe it or not,” Jasper sighed, and Eleven had the audacity to laugh, looking for at least that moment as young and annoyingly carefree as he probably should.

* * *

Lord Robert was apparently somewhere in the ruins of Dundrasil castle, consulting with a small group of architects. He wanted to have plans for the castle’s reconstruction drawn up as soon as possible, both as a morale buffer for the volunteers and so that he could petition for more substantial financial aid from the other kingdoms. Everyone was having their own problems following the looming threat of Calasmos, as well as the malicious frenzy he had whipped the monsters into, and while it was lovely in theory, funds were stretched a little too thin across the board to offer much towards what was still, essentially, a pipe dream.

At least, so the Luminary said. Jasper hadn’t really gotten the impression of Carnelian being any more frugal than he remembered, but he kept that to himself.

Seemingly the actual drawing of the plans was proving a problem in itself too, since aside from the few walls that still stood and some old illustrated tomes Lord Robert had gathered during his travels, he didn’t have much more than his own memory of the castle’s layout to go on.

They found the architects before they found Lord Robert, passing them as the group went in the opposite direction out of the ruins, clutching scrolls and quills and muttering about balustrades and baileys and...beef stew. Clearly they were heading for their lunch break.

Eleven stopped them as they passed, and they pointed him further in to where his grandfather still worked away.

* * *

Lord Robert hadn’t changed much since Jasper had seen him last. The old king had buzzed around Heliodor for a time after all the world-saving business was over, and Jasper had done his best to stay out of his way. Thankfully, it had only been a couple of months before he had announced he was heading back to his homeland to rebuild it, and there he had seemingly remained, picking up his grandson somewhere along the way.

Now he wandered back and forth, stroking his chin and murmuring to himself as he looked up at a half-collapsed wall. He glanced down at the papers he held in his free hand, and then reached behind his ear and plucked the quill that was settled there, scribbling a note on the page.

Or rather, attempting to. The quill was dry.

Jasper distinctly heard him tut and mutter, “Bloody numpties are away wi’ all the ink…”

Eleven chose that moment to call out to his grandfather, trotting over to him and leaving Jasper trailing behind.

Lord Robert turned at the sound of his grandson’s voice, a smile lighting up his features. He was dressed in simple clothes with not a shred of royal implication to them, and a round hat sat upon his round head. “El! I was wondering where you had got tae.” He rolled up the papers and tucked them and the quill inside his jacket.

“I was helping with lunch,” Eleven explained, “and then Moira got back with Jasper, so I thought I should stop him getting mobbed and bring him right to you.”

Lord Robert’s eyes then fell upon Jasper as he arrived beside Eleven and immediately dropped to one knee. He intoned, as protocol directed, “Your Majesty. It is an honour.”

Protocol did not direct that Lord Robert would respond with a scoff. “Och, away with that nonsense. I’m naebody’s majesty, and havenae been for a long time. On yer feet, laddie.”

Jasper stood, a bit put off. He had never been reprimanded for actually doing his job before.

Lord Robert didn’t look angry, though. Instead he smiled up at Jasper, his face crinkling pleasantly. “Just Rab’s fine these days. And it’s nice to see you in such guid fettle.”

Jasper was not sure his fettle could be described as ‘guid,’ but before he could figure out how best to respond, a new voice piped up. Or rather, it hollered from a distance.

“Elllllll!”

Eleven and Jasper both turned, and Lord Robert looked past them to the source of the sound. It appeared to be...a girl. She sprinted towards them, light on her feet, and arrived at a very abrupt stop in front of Eleven. She wasn’t out of breath in the slightest despite the uneven landscape. Jasper was quietly impressed.

The girl pouted up at Eleven, her nose scrunching with the animated strength of her expression. She looked to be in her early-to-mid-teens, with some shockingly bright blue hair done up in a messy braid. The colour implied Zwaardsrustian heritage, but her voice was heavy with the musical lilt of the Sniflheim dialect. “My brother’s looking for you. He says you’re late.”

Eleven gave a small gasp and looked up. Jasper followed his eyes - the sun had moved on slightly from its midday position, beginning its long, slow descent to its nightly rest. Clearly the boy could read the skies too, for he grimaced at the sight, looking back to the girl.

“I’m so sorry, I got caught up in…” He gestured at Jasper. Jasper frowned. He didn’t appreciate the insinuation.

The girl looked at Jasper. Jasper, not to be outdone by a child, looked right back. Her gaze was solid with the fearlessness of youth. She was someone who knew nothing of royalty or knights, and neither did she care to know. To her, Jasper was just a strange man, and it showed on her face. There was something oddly refreshing about the way she regarded him with a mix of open curiosity and the fierce and instant judgement only a child can pass upon a person.

Something...familiar, too. Perhaps it was the defiant jut of her jaw, or the summer sky colour of her hair and eyes, but Jasper felt an irritating niggle of recognition, though he was not one for keeping the company of children. Ever. Annoying little creatures.

And then she was tugging at the Luminary’s sleeve, and Jasper was forgotten to her. “Well, hurry up. I don’t want him to go in a mood.”

Eleven turned an apologetic smile towards Jasper and Lord Robert. “Sorry, I forgot I promised to—”

His grandfather waved his apology right out of the air with an, “Away you go, son. We’ll be fine.”

Eleven barely had time to nod before he was being insistently yanked away by the hand, the girl marching in front with purpose.

“He doesn’t go in moods,” Jasper heard him protest quietly as he was pulled along.

The girl replied, “He _does_ , just not with _you_ ,” and then they rounded a corner and their voices disappeared along with them, and Jasper was left in the company of Lord Robert.

The...awkward company. The Luminary had seemed content to humour his stubborn silence and chatter enough for both of them - that was probably the easygoing country boy in him - but Jasper could hardly act that way in front of a king. Even a retired one who now preferred to dress like a commoner and go by a nickname.

He turned, beginning with, “Lord Robert,” but the other man had already moved away, and gestured for Jasper to follow him.

He said, “Come with me, laddie. Let’s take a wee walk.”

* * *

As they walked deeper into the ruins of the castle, it became increasingly clear to Jasper that no one except Lord Robert, his grandson, and perhaps a few opportunistic treasure hunters had ventured this far in a long time. The walls here were ensnared in several years’ worth of ivy and collapsed further in on themselves by time and nature where violence had begun the job. 

Jasper felt a little...wrong, being here. It wasn’t his castle. It wasn’t his kingdom. He was a perfect stranger here. It was different from the ruins of Zwaardsrust - there he had merely passed through, but here he was being led deliberately deeper, into the very heart of what was once a bustling kingdom.

Lord Robert made idle conversation as they went, asking of Heliodor and Carnelian and Hendrik but mostly of Jade, and laughing with true warmth when Jasper relayed the stories of how much she had managed to talk her father into in the short time they had been reunited. Her miracles ranged from acts of benevolence like gifting monthly care packages to the citizens in the slums, to slightly less altruistic motions like adopting two cats she had seen sneaking into the garden below her window. (They could be mousers, she had said, knowing full well there were no mice foolish enough to try their luck in the castle. As it stood, the cats wandered the halls with the utmost self-satisfied indolence and meowed at the maids for treats.)

“Aye, she’s a livewire, that yin,” Lord Robert remarked. “Carnelian should just be pleased he missed her teenage rebellion phase.”

And then, rather than turn past the sizeable pile of rubble they had been heading towards, he began to climb over it.

Jasper felt a cold sweat drench him at once. He did not need the old man whose care he was currently under to fall and break his neck, especially given his track record with trying to inflict harm on the Drasilian royal family. He jolted forward.

“L-Lord Robert, I’m not sure that’s—”

“Och, I’m fine, laddie.” True enough, he stepped calmly from one outcropping of collapsed wall to the next, balancing impeccably on the sturdier pieces of debris while avoiding the ones that looked ready to dislodge. “Turns out travelling the length and breadth of Erdrea is a guid way to keep fit, even at my age.”

He reached the summit and turned a rather unkingly grin back at Jasper before disappearing over the other side.

Jasper, absolutely bewildered, had no choice but to follow him.

* * *

Lord Robert was waiting ahead as Jasper crossed the rubble pile, his back turned - which was just as well, since it meant he didn’t see the way Jasper misstepped on the way down and his foot slipped, leaving him off-balance and flailing for a few mortifying moments. He suppressed the instinctive yelp that climbed his throat and righted himself, hopping to the ground in a manner that forewent grace for quickness.

He could hardly afford to break his _own_ neck, either.

When he reached the ground, Jasper noticed that the area beyond the rubble opened up into what might have once been a courtyard. There were vestiges of a neatly kept lawn, though the lines of its square shape were long since overgrown with weeds, and the path that ran between its two halves was broken beyond repair. What looked like a fountain was trashed in the centre, crumbled in on itself and its water long since dried up. Any plants that had once decorated the space had burned away to nothing the night Dundrasil fell, and now only wildflowers and thistles roamed. They were beautiful in their own way, Jasper supposed, sprouting wherever the wind carried their seeds.

Lord Robert tottered over to the fountain, where there was a long, flat piece of stone supported by two squatter rocks beneath it. It seemed like a makeshift bench, and was clearly intended as such, as the old king perched himself on it. He patted the space next to him, and Jasper tentatively approached and sat with him.

They sat in quiet for a while, Lord Robert seeming content not to speak and Jasper having not the slightest idea what an appropriate topic of conversation would be, nor why he had been brought to such a place. The sounds of work going on on the outskirts of the ruined city were drowned out completely here, by birdsong and the breeze that whistled through the holes in the rubble, giving a strange, peaceful atmosphere despite the remnants of destruction.

Eventually, Lord Robert said, “So, you want tae learn magical mending.”

Jasper startled at his voice - he had been unwittingly lulled into the silence of his surroundings, but the old king’s words cut through the hush like a hot knife, searing sudden shame into Jasper’s skin.

“I,” he said, fingers clenching in the fabric of his trousers, “yes.”

He felt Lord Robert regarding him, but he dared not look at him.

“Jade said in her letter that Carnelian ordered it of the whole army.”

“Yes,” Jasper said again.

Beside him, Lord Robert’s rotund body heaved with a long-suffering sigh. “He hasnae changed. Always big on the dramatics, but absolutely nae tact. What he’s thinking, putting the fear o’ the Goddess into his soldiers, I have nae idea.”

Jasper bristled quietly. King or not, that Lord Robert should imply he was afraid of Carnelian’s decree didn’t sit well with him. That he was entirely correct sat even worse.

“He wouldnae act on it,” Lord Robert continued, “you ken that, right?”

Jasper couldn’t quite help the hint of a wry smile. “The princess said much the same thing.”

“Ach, well, that settles it then.” Lord Robert mirrored Jasper’s expression. “That lass is always right.”

“Don’t I know it,” Jasper muttered, and then caught himself, suddenly going rigid where he sat. Jade may be used to his sarcastic quips at her - and she returned them tenfold more often than not - but to let such a thing slip in front of the man who was essentially her second father figure—! “F-Forgive me, Lord Robert, I did not mean to imply—”

But he never got further than that, because Lord Robert laughed. Lord Robert _guffawed_. Lord Robert rolled with such mirth he almost fell off the bench, slapping his knee and wiping jolly tears from his eyes.

Jasper stared. That was not the reaction he had expected.

“Oh aye,” Lord Robert managed to wheeze out eventually, “I’ll bet she keeps all of ye’s on yer toes!” After a moment, his laughter waned into a final few chuckles, and then he sighed in the way that people do when they haven’t laughed that hard in a very long time. He looked up at Jasper. “I’ll teach you, as best I can.”

Jasper sat up very straight. He bowed his head. “Thank you, sir.”

“I wouldnae thank me yet. It’s been a long time since I’ve taught anybody anythin’. For all I ken, I might be as much use as a chocolate teapot.”

“Not at all. The princess speaks highly of your skills.”

“She would,” Lord Robert agreed, “for it was me that patched her up every time she came greetin’ to me wi’ a skint knee.” He sighed fondly. “But for her to think of sending you a’ the way oot here...was there naebody in Heliodor that could teach you? I ken you’re short on healers, but...even Hendrik kens healing magic, surely he could have went o’er the basics with you?”

Jasper looked away sharply. “No,” he said, just as sharp, “he could not.”

“Ah,” Lord Robert said, the utterance of the single vowel so weighty with wisdom and understanding that Jasper felt himself flush. “The less said aboot that the better, then.”

True enough, Lord Robert changed the subject, talking instead of the area they sat in - it had once been Queen Eleanor’s private garden, he said, and he was thinking of turning it into a memorial garden, not only for her and King Irwin, but for everyone who had lost their lives that awful night. He would erect a plaque too, he promised, for the soldiers of the other kingdoms who had fought to try to save not only their own, but also the people of Dundrasil.

It was awkward, sitting in such a private area that Jasper certainly didn’t belong in, listening to a man who had lost everything recount events that in all honesty Jasper barely remembered. The night of Dundrasil’s fall was a blur; all he could truly recall were the flames, the endless trails of viscera that stuck to his swords, and the screams that even the awful screeching of the monsters couldn’t drown out.

He was glad when he was eventually dismissed. 

* * *

Jasper felt eyes on him as soon as he crossed the wall of rubble. He turned, just in case - he had left Lord Robert behind at his request to be alone for a while - but sure enough the old king hadn’t followed him.

Jasper turned his eyes forward again, scanning the area. He couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but there was a distinct presence...somewhere. It was hard to pinpoint, most likely deliberately concealed, which made it hard to tell what direction it lay in. But there was most definitely something watching him.

He drew his swords. He hadn’t thought monsters would venture this far since people had set up dwellings in Dundrasil again, but it had lain empty and wild for almost twenty years, so it wasn’t impossible that they had encroached into something’s territory without knowing.

Jasper quieted his breathing, sharpened his focus. If there was something out there, he would find it before it could possibly do harm to Lord Robert, or anyone else. He stilled, holding his blades poised to strike the moment something changed.

A sound of movement ahead and to his right, loose debris dislodging, and Jasper was already taking the first step, angling to strike—

—which he had to hastily correct as what revealed itself from behind a small pile of rubble was not a monster, but a little girl.

The same little girl that had carted the Luminary off before, unimpressed expression and all.

Jasper stopped a mere foot from her, resheathing his blades with the utmost dignity, like he hadn’t just almost run her through. His jaw ticked in irritation. _Children_. “What are you _doing_? It’s dangerous to wander around here.”

“I hang out here all the time,” she argued. Another annoying thing children liked to do. “Rab says it’s okay. It’s not dangerous unless weird men try to stab me.”

It was harder than Jasper would admit to push down the urge to argue back. But he managed it, sighing instead - which wasn’t nearly as satisfying - and walked past her.

Her feet scuffed against the dirt as she trotted to keep up with him.

Oh, how he hated children.

He kept his eyes forward and his pace brisk, but nonetheless her head popped into view somewhere around his right elbow. “You’re Jasper, right?”

“Oh, so you were eavesdropping.”

“No!” she retorted. “El was talking about you. He said you’re a knight. From Heliodor.”

“Correct on both accounts, well done.”

“Why is Rab teaching you magic?”

At this, Jasper slid a narrowed gaze to the girl. She stared at him without reproach. “I thought you weren’t eavesdropping.”

“Damn, busted.” She didn’t even deign to grace him with an apologetic look. She just... _laughed_. It was a high and grating sound. “I’m Mia, by the way.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.”

Mia laughed again, stretching her arms above her head and then crossing them behind it to pillow her neck as she continued to peer up at Jasper. “That’s so cool, though...I wish I could learn magic, but my brother won’t let me. He says it’s _dangerous_ , and I’m not _old_ _enough_. He won’t even let me hold one of his knives! I’m not gonna cut my hand off with the thing! Hey, will you let me hold one of your swords?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Aw.” Mia’s pout was near enough audible. “I bet El would teach me magic _and_ how to swordfight if I asked…” She sighed, somehow wistful and peeved at the same time. “El’s so cool, I don’t know _what_ he sees in my dumb brother. I mean he’s the Luminary _and_ a prince! Erik’s just...well, he’s pretty cool too, I guess - _but don’t tell him I said that!_ \- but he’s not…”

Mia continued to chatter, but Jasper had stopped hearing her after she said _Erik_. He had sudden visions of a boy bound to a pole, weakened and pathetic, but still glaring at him with defiance, his jaw set and his eyes hard. The same expression he had seen on Mia when he had first come across her.

The feeling of nagging familiarity that had been bothering Jasper suddenly settled cold and heavy around his limbs like chains, and he stopped walking. Mia didn’t, beginning to bound down the slope that led back to the outskirts of Dundrasil.

In slow motion, Jasper watched her face light up with automatic glee, her arm come up and begin to wave madly. He followed her line of sight down into the small crowds of people, and when his eyes settled on the same shade of blue hair that Mia had, time returned to its normal speed and he heard her yell in a voice that sounded far too loud for her small frame,

“Eriiiiiiik! Elllllllll! I brought the new guy back!”

The blue-haired boy and the Luminary beside him turned as one, but Jasper only saw the instant snap of hateful recognition in one pair of eyes.

He realised what it must look like. To the Luminary’s partner, Jasper had been a source of nothing but pain and anger throughout their whole journey. The boy would probably have been content to leave him for dead on Yggdrasil.

Now, quite clearly - and unwillingly, but that hardly mattered - accompanying Erik’s little sister, it seemed death was not completely off the cards, especially when the boy broke free of whatever casual hold the Luminary had on him and started running full tilt towards Jasper, rage plain on his face and his dagger bouncing at his hip.

Mia turned back to look at Jasper with wide eyes. “Do you already know my brother as well?”

“Yes,” said Jasper, “we’ve met.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> scots slang translation notes:  
>  **numpty (pl. numpties):** idiot  
>  **yin:** one  
>  **ken:** know  
>  **greeting:** crying
> 
> just a note to say that even though i've been keeping a consistent fortnightly upload schedule so far, this is where it might end... this was the last chapter i had already written that just needed editing (i haven't even _started_ chapter 7 as of writing this), and i've been suffering from tremendous writer's block recently, so updates might become a little more random. i'll try my best to not let that happen though!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jasper begins to settle in to his new temporary life in Dundrasil. But with an angry Erik out for his blood, old Drasilian men talking at him with their incomprehensible accents, having to room with two middle-aged women, and beginning to miss home, it really isn't as easy as he thought it would be.  
> And that's before his lessons even begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the longer wait on this chapter! i know i said i would try to keep some semblance of a schedule, but it appears i might not be able to. i've had horrendous writer's block recently, and i've been going through some stuff offline, so i can't promise any regular updates. just know that i still love this fic dearly and will continue to work on it as much as possible!
> 
> also, i'm a bit apprehensive about uploading this chapter, because it's a bit...boring? not that this is a high-octane fic anyway, but i feel like nothing of consequence happens in this chapter at all lol. but consider it a kind of interlude, i guess, before jasper's dundrasil life really begins! i promise the next chapter will have a bit more excitement!

It seemed the Luminary was making a habit of jumping between Jasper and danger, although in this case he hadn’t so much jumped between them as he had grabbed danger’s arm, holding it back while it snarled and snapped like a rabid dog.

The comparison proved fitting a moment later, when Erik made a sound that could only be described as a growl and whirled on his partner. His free arm came up, for now only pointing an accusing finger at Jasper and not a knife. “What is _he_ doing here!?”

Eleven gave an attempt at a pacifying smile, and Jasper knew at once that the boy had not mentioned his arrival to Erik in the slightest. How foolish. “I told you someone was coming from Heliodor to—”

“You told me _someone_ was coming from Heliodor,” Erik cut in, “you didn’t tell me it was going to be this— _this_ —” He turned to glare at Jasper again, eyes alight with hatred. Jasper felt the beginnings of amusement stir in him, though he kept an even expression. “This piece of—”

“ _Erik_.”

“Let him finish,” Mia piped up, her amusement entirely unrestrained. “I wanna hear the end of that.”

“Shut _up_ , Mia,” Erik snapped. “And get away from him.”

“Why, what’d he do?” She turned her big, curious eyes on Jasper. “What did you do?”

“That’s enough, Mia.” Eleven’s voice was firm but still far gentler than Erik’s. “And Erik, can you please calm down? Everyone’s looking.” Jasper saw Erik bristle indignantly at that, but it was true that several pairs of eyes had turned their way at all of his shouting. After a moment he obediently stood down, though his shoulders were still rigid with tension and he would not look at Jasper. Eleven let go of his arm. “I’ll tell you about it in a bit, okay? Right now I have to find Beryl and—”

“I know,” Erik said, and skulked away. Eleven winced.

Mia announced, “I’ll go after him if you give me your dessert tonight.”

“Deal,” Eleven said. He held out his fist and the girl bumped hers to it, and then off she merrily skipped. Only when she was out of sight and the onlookers had turned back to their tasks did Eleven let a long, defeated sigh escape him. “Well _that_ could have gone better.”

“I apologise for causing you...relationship troubles,” Jasper said, letting his concealed smirk blossom now that there was no risk of a knife in his gut, “but if I may speak plainly, keeping my arrival a secret was not one of your better ideas.”

Eleven groaned, “I know, I just...didn’t know how to bring it up. Erik...he…”

“Hates me. I’m aware.”

“I wouldn’t say _that_ , he just—”

“Let’s not pretend I didn’t once knock him out, restrain him and use him as bait, Luminary. And that’s only his most personal of grievances, never mind everything I tried to afflict on the rest of your friends. He is well within his rights to feel as he does, and I would be more concerned had he welcomed me as warmly as you and your grandfather did.”

In all honesty, Jasper had expected a little more animosity from the people here. Though they were an eclectic bunch from all over Erdrea, Jasper had noticed a few eyeing him with more recognition than the others. Heliodorian, no doubt, knowing of him at least by rank and name if not by sight. Not by rumour, either, if the lack of telling whispers behind his back was anything to go by. 

In Heliodor, word travelled fast - especially when it was word of one of the kingdom’s finest knights being imprisoned for suspected treason, even if he was released a day later. Jasper ignored the shadows that stalked the halls and streets after him most of the time, but that did not mean he didn’t know they were always there.

But perhaps this displaced bunch simply didn’t care for the goings-on of their homeland. If it made Jasper’s life easier, he certainly wasn’t going to complain.

“He’ll come around eventually,” Eleven said, staring off in the direction Erik had gone. He didn’t sound convinced; a sentiment he and Jasper definitely shared. But then the boy seemed to perk up, his gaze focusing on something in particular through the crowd. “Oh! Beryl!”

Jasper followed his line of sight and landed upon a woman weaving her way easily between the people. At the sound of her name she looked up, her face splitting into a grin at the sight of the Luminary beckoning her over. He seemed to get that reaction a lot.

“Your High—Eleven,” she caught herself in time as she scuttled over and brought herself to a swift stop in front of the boy. “I just saw Mia. She said you were looking for me? And Erik too, but he had a face like _thunder_. Is everything alright?”

Eleven turned a bit pink. “It’s not important. I was to let you know when Jasper arrived, so…” He gestured at Jasper, who noticed him breathe a clear sigh of relief when she turned away without any further questioning.

“Sir Jasper of Heliodor,” she said, gripping the sides of her skirt and bobbing in a mangled attempt at a curtsey. The thought was nice, though. “I’ve been awaiting your arrival. It’s an honour to have someone of such renown involved with our project.”

Finally, here was someone who knew how to conduct themselves. No crowding into his space and throwing an arm around his shoulders like an old friend. Just the thought of it still made his skin crawl.

Judging by her accent, she hailed from Heliodor too, and Jasper placed her at roughly ten years his senior, so it was no real surprise that she knew of him more than a child like Mia had. Still, it was pleasant, and he let himself bask in the recognition for a moment longer before he replied.

“The pleasure is all mine, Miss...ah, Beryl, I believe the Luminary called you?”

That sent her giggling, her fair face scrunching in glee and pulling in all her freckles to gather around her nose. “ _Miss_ …! Oh, your reputation for charming the ladies precedes you! No one has called me ‘Miss’ in years!”

Jasper, who had never purposely charmed a woman in his life, smiled politely.

“But yes, I’m Beryl,” she continued. “You could say I’m in charge of human resources around here, which in this case means I’m in charge of getting hold of the resources us humans need. Shelter, food, water, medicine, even making sure everyone’s dirty socks get washed.”

“Beryl deserves a fancy title more than anyone,” Eleven piped up. “She works the hardest and complains the least.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Beryl said, but she glowed under the earnestness of the compliment. “It’s the least I can do, since I’m not cut out for any of the heavy lifting.”

That much was true, it was plain to see: she was a petite woman in both height and build, and she carried herself delicately and with a practised grace despite how at home she seemed to feel among the mess of construction. Her auburn hair was done up in a stylish array of winding plaits, which along with her cheerful disposition gave her an air of youth. Jasper could not imagine her caked in grime and hauling rubble.

Then again, he could not have imagined Jade wielding a glaive and kicking him so hard he still had bruises a week later until it happened. That had been an interesting training session. He had never seen the younger recruits so terrified.

* * *

Beryl led Jasper away through the crowds of volunteers while the Luminary bade them both farewell and skittered off in another direction. Probably to find his repugnant little thief and...do whatever it was young lovers did to resolve an argument. Kiss? Now there was something Jasper did not want to think about for too long. Or at all.

Thankfully Beryl had him covered, talking his ear off about the layout of the encampment, the rebuilding plans, the progress and...the schedule, apparently.

“Monday and Thursday are laundry days, Tuesday and Friday are incoming post days, Wednesday is the outgoing post day, and the trader comes every second Saturday - we get enough basics to go around but if you want something special we have a luxury list you can add to, as long as you’re not asking for it every time. Sunday is _technically_ a rest day for anyone who wants to take it, but as you can see—” She gestured vaguely around them, where lines of people were sawing, sanding and hammering planks of wood. “No one really seems to want to.”

They continued on past several structures in various states of repair, further and further away from the central bustle until Beryl slowed her pace near what seemed to be the final house on the very edge of Dundrasil’s outskirts. It was a bungalow, built of solid grey stone and looking a little rough around the edges. There wasn’t much more to say about it, aside from that the curtains hanging in the window were an ugly shade of green. And floral.

“Since you were rather an abrupt arrival, I’m afraid I haven’t had time to sort out any better lodgings for you,” Beryl said. Jasper was about to protest that the curtains weren’t _that_ offensive, really, when he was knocked speechless by her follow-up: “So I hope you don’t mind sharing.”

“Sh-Sharing?” He barely managed to hold back from turning the word into an indignant splutter. “With who?”

Beryl turned to him with a shy little smile. “Um, me.”

Well, that wasn’t so bad. She seemed nice enough.

“And Moira.”

Jasper’s mouth froze on the way to an automatic grimace. He reined in the impulse with all his might, fighting to keep his lips settled into a neutral line.

Two seconds. For two seconds, he had honestly thought something was going to turn out alright for him.

He should have known better, really.

“Oh, um, I can try and get you settled with someone else instead,” Beryl amended, flustered. She had obviously taken his silence as a bad sign - which it _was_ , but he wasn’t supposed to let her know that. “But I’m afraid it would have to be shared accommodation; we had a huge influx of volunteers in the last few months and I’m still struggling to get living spaces sorted for them all, hence the huge number of tents—”

“This will be—fine,” Jasper said. He had almost said _adequate_ , but Beryl seemed distressed enough. “As long as I’m not intruding.”

Beryl’s countenance changed instantly, her face lighting up as she clapped her hands together. “You won’t be! We have a little back room, and I do mean _little_ I’m afraid, but it should be—well, it’s probably better if I let you see for yourself.”

She swung the door open - it wasn’t locked, why wasn’t it _locked_ , did these people have no concept of _privacy_ or _safety_ \- and stepped in, with Jasper following more cautiously.

The front entrance opened directly into a living and dining area, with a battered sofa on the right and a table and set of chairs to the left, nestled into a basic kitchen. There was a door to the far right of the room, and two others at the back.

“Moira!” Beryl called, and tutted when she received no answer. “Honestly, haven’t seen her in a week and she’d rather be up at the bloody stable with that bloody horse…”

Jasper, surmising he was not supposed to have heard that, cleared his throat. Beryl twirled to face him, her smile fixed in place.

“Ah, I know it’s probably nothing compared to Heliodor castle, but I hope you’ll find it homey!” she said. _Homey_ was certainly one word for it. The entire building was probably not much bigger than Jasper’s bedroom back in Heliodor. “Feel free to use anything as you see fit. We usually have communal meals up at the central food court, but if you’d prefer you can use our things to make your own meals. I only ask that you let us know if something runs out.” At Jasper’s nod, she smiled wider and turned to gesture at the doors set into the rear of the room. “The one on the left is your room, right is the bathroom. The water might be a bit colder than what you’re used to, but I’m afraid it’s all we have right now. Anyway, I have to get back to work, so I’m sorry I can’t give you the full tour, but feel free to take your time to unpack.”

With that, Beryl sat at the dining table, which was a mess of papers and ink bottles. She let out a sigh as she sank into her chair, instantly popping the top from one of the ink bottles and taking up a quill to tap against her lip in thought, her brows furrowing as she dug a pair of glasses out from somewhere inside her blouse and settled them on the end of her nose.

She looked busy. Jasper felt a pang of relatable empathy. No one appreciated the weight of desk work.

* * *

He had expected his room to be small, but he hadn’t expected it to be... _this_ small. It was barely any bigger than the room at the _Warrior’s Rest_ had been, with a single bed pressed up against the wall beneath the window. Only about a foot’s gap separated the bottom of the bed from the closet against the adjacent wall, and beside that there was a small chest of drawers. To the side of the bed was a desk and chair, which Jasper immediately set his bag and swords down on. 

As he closed the door behind him (which was, thankfully, fitted with a lock), he saw a small mirror set into the wall to the right of it, and more out of habit than anything else he found himself examining his reflection.

He looked...tired. Not exhausted, but there was a certain unkemptness to the dark tint beneath his eyes and the barest hint of stubble on his jaw that had him wincing in shame and abruptly turning away from the mirror again.

He needed a shower, but first he needed to unpack.

The storage space, despite being meagre, was enough for the clothes he had brought, and there was even enough room at the back of one of the drawers for him to stash a small tin of his favourite tea and a bag of chocolates he knew from experience went well with it.

(He probably didn’t need to hide them, but for years he had kept a whole drawer dedicated to secret snacks in his room in Heliodor, and old habits died hard. Especially when sugar was involved.)

When he left his room again, armed with clean clothes and toiletries, Beryl was flitting madly around the kitchen area, scooping up handfuls of papers while shoving something into her mouth and chewing with great fervour.

She apologised for having to run out - or at least Jasper thought she did, but it was hard to make out her words behind the polite hand hiding her impolite mouthful of food - but fired off some details about how to work the shower and where to leave his clothes to have them laundered, and then she was gone, and Jasper had the place to himself.

And that suited him just fine.

* * *

The bathroom was tinier yet than his bedroom. He hadn’t thought that was possible, but it seemed barely large enough to contain its pathetic contents of a toilet, sink, shower cubicle, and yet another small wall mirror. The lack of a bath was wholly upsetting, and Jasper was thankful he hadn’t wasted luggage space bringing his bath salts.

Halfway through unbuttoning his shirt, a flash of gold caught his eye: his token of fealty. He scooped it into his hand, looking down at it as he ran his thumb absently over the engraved two-headed eagle emblem. He had briefly considered leaving it behind after Jade’s announcement, if only for fear of it becoming lost or damaged, but with how quickly she had ushered him out of the castle he hadn’t had time to come to a conclusion. Not wearing it would have felt far stranger to him anyway. Aside from when he bathed and slept, he hadn’t taken it off since he’d first received it.

(Not even when evil fingers had pulled on the chain and almost strangled him with it.)

The water was, indeed, colder than he was used to.

He washed and dressed and put his hair up quickly, threw his old clothes in the hamper Beryl had indicated, and then…

And then, he didn’t really know what to do.

Beryl was gone, the Luminary had disappeared off after his pet, and Lord Robert hadn’t exactly given Jasper any instructions. “ _I’ll teach you as best I can_ ,” he had said, but not how, or where, or _when_. Presumably not today, given that it was already into the afternoon and Lord Robert was probably meeting with the architects again. Even the next day wasn’t a guarantee, considering how busy he must be with taking charge of such a large-scale project. Perhaps his teaching would come down to a pep-talk over lunch every now and then. It was probably stupid to have expected a formal lesson plan in such circumstances, especially at such short notice. Jasper thought perhaps he should continue to try practising on his own, no matter how futile it might be; surely if he tried for long enough he’d get _somewhere_ —

Jade sprung to mind, finger wagging, scolding, “ _Stop_ worrying _so much!_ ”

If only it were that easy.

* * *

He began by exploring the house. Not that there was much to explore, and in less than ten minutes he had taken note of all the books haphazardly piled next to the sofa and the entire contents of the food cupboards. 

He turned then to the mess Beryl had left behind on the table. It was rude to pry, but a neat little graph on one of the papers caught his eye, expertly drawn with rigid straight lines plotting the project’s funds against the amount of resources they were ordering on a regular basis. The lines were fairly even, with no large spikes. Clearly Beryl was as good at managing input and output as she was at drawing graphs. Jasper nodded appreciatively.

* * *

He stepped outside with caution, drawing the door softly closed behind him, as though he might get accosted by yet another new face the moment he left the sanctity of his new quarters.

But no new faces appeared. No faces appeared at all - this far from the centre hub there was no one around, and the sounds of construction and banter were blissfully muted beneath the constant burbling of the river. Usually that in itself would be annoying, but it was highly preferable to any other options in this case, and Jasper thanked whatever tiny branch of Yggdrasil had granted him this one thing.

Of course it didn’t last.

With no actual instructions, his plan had been to make a circuit of the entire area to familiarise himself with the layout. He had gotten fairly far, having made it past the central food court and a few more finished-looking buildings, all the way to the other end where he smelled the horses before he saw the stables. He swiftly turned on his heel there lest he run into Moira, and made his way back, intending on ascending into the upper realms of Dundrasil to continue his mental mapping.

Until a voice yelled out, “Hoi, new guy!”

Jasper felt every fibre of his being sigh in resignation. Unless someone had arrived after him, he was very much still the “new guy.” He hadn’t been the “new guy” for many years. Not since he had given one of his fellow trainees a black eye for teasing him about his long hair, and threatened worse. The boy had sworn blind he had walked into a pole and never so much as looked at Jasper again.

“Hoi, _new guy_!” the voice yelled again.

Jasper reluctantly turned.

The voice belonged to an older man - Jasper would have said “elderly,” were it not for the man’s extremely large arm muscles that bulged beneath his cut-off sleeves. That, and he had been re-evaluating his associations with the word since seeing Lord Robert near enough vault over a pile of debris three times his height.

The man smiled from his perch atop a similarly sized pile, showing several impressive gaps where his teeth should have been. “Seen ye daunderin’ aboot lookin’ a bit lost. If yer wantin’ somehin’ tae dae, gonnae geez a haun? Ah’m fair puckled.”

Jasper blinked. The man’s smile did not waver.

Jasper very quickly realised he had been asked a question. The trouble was, he had no idea what the question was. He had struggled a bit with Moira’s dialect, but this was like trying to translate that ridiculous book of mushrooms without a dictionary.

He suddenly missed that book. It was still on his desk in Heliodor where he had left it. Oh, if only he were there too, instead of staring down the barrel of an old Drasilian man’s gappy grin.

“Er, pardon?” he tried.

“Ah _said_ ,” the man went on, enunciating his words slowly (it didn’t help), “gon-nae geez a _haun_? Ah’m knackered, an’ are you knight-types no supposed tae help pair auld folks like me?”

Jasper blinked again. Trying to decipher this old man’s speech was going to give him a headache. He could already feel the beginnings of one, prickling behind his eyes. Wonderful. 

But from the snippets he _could_ glean meaning from (knight, help, old folks), Jasper decided that the man must be asking for assistance with whatever he was doing.

Which looked to be hauling rubble from the top of the pile into a wheelbarrow at the bottom.

Even better. The manual labour was starting early.

With a resigned sigh and a moment of silence for his good clean trousers, Jasper set about climbing a mountain of debris for the second time that day.

* * *

From several stilted attempts at communication, Jasper learned that what the man, who had introduced himself as Dougie, had actually been doing was sorting the rubble into pieces that were solid enough and the right shape to be reused in the reconstruction, and those that were useless and to be disposed of. Between them, they managed to sort out a system of work: Jasper would stand atop the pile and pick out pieces he thought were good enough, rolling them down to land near the wheelbarrow; Dougie, now seated comfortably on solid ground beside said wheelbarrow, would evaluate Jasper’s choices with his apparently expert eye.

Every time he tossed away a piece Jasper had thought appropriate, a sharp hot slice of annoyance branded itself across Jasper’s face, until he was sweating with vexation as well as exertion and his jaw ached with how hard he was gritting his teeth.

(The swell of satisfaction he felt whenever the old man nodded and placed one of his choices into the wheelbarrow, however, was inconsequential and therefore to be steadfastly ignored. There was no real sense of accomplishment to be had from picking through the dusty remnants of a destroyed society. Even if Dougie had kindly let him borrow his gloves to do it.)

Jasper had no idea how long he continued at his task. Once he put his indignation at being reduced to an old man’s helper aside - he could come back to it later - he found it easy to fall into a silent rhythm of bending and picking and rolling rubble. Quiet repetition had always been his preferred method for learning any new skill - swordplay, footwork, languages, and now, apparently, construction. Muscle memory freed his mind to think ahead to other things.

Except, of course, with magical mending. No amount of repeated attempts had made him any better at that.

He rolled the next brick down the pile with a bit more force.

* * *

When the wheelbarrow was full, Dougie called up for him to stop. They had made decent progress, cutting a sizeable chunk out of the mound, and as Jasper - gracefully - hopped back to solid ground, Dougie showed his appreciation with a bellowing laugh, some words of what Jasper presumed were thanks, and a hefty slap directly between his shoulder blades.

It was also, unfortunately, at that exact moment that Jasper realised how badly his muscles were aching.

He excused himself politely with empty promises to help again soon, and left Dougie to shift the wheelbarrow to its intended destination, wherever that was. The man probably had enough spare brawn to handle it, and there was no way Jasper was being roped into shoving five times his own bodyweight in literal rocks across the ruins of Dundrasil. 

There was just as little chance of him actually being _able_ to, given the taut bindings of pain that squeezed across his upper back as he tried to roll out his shoulders. Honestly. How shameful. He’d thought he kept a decent level of fitness; he was certainly lean enough, and could usually keep up with Hendrik in terms of stamina, but apparently he still had muscles that he didn’t use regularly. At least not to the extent of lifting bits of old building for hours. And all of them were _screaming_.

What he wouldn’t give for a hot bath.

But he supposed he’d have to settle for another lukewarm shower.

* * *

When he was freshly changed (again), Jasper decided he’d had quite enough of people for the day. From the Luminary and his questionable taste in men, to people who had only the barest grasp of the common tongue, the urge for peace and quiet now enveloped Jasper like a full-body ache. Or maybe that was just the actual aches.

Either way, he flung himself onto the sofa with a grand exhalation. Beryl and Moira had yet to return, and Jasper planned on enjoying every second of blissful silence as he sprawled carelessly across the faded fabric.

His blissful silence lasted all of ten seconds until his stomach growled. Ah.

The sun had already been a hazy smudge in the western skies when he had finished helping Dougie, so by now it must have been beginning to veer downwards. In other words, it was likely approaching dinnertime.

Jasper briefly considered abandoning his blessed comfort and quiet and heading over to the communal dining area—but then he recalled, with the sudden sharpness of contextual awareness, how he had overheard a group of women surrounding the ovens talking about bunicorn meat, and his stomach gave a twist of disapproval that he strongly agreed with.

And Beryl _had_ told him to feel free to use their food supplies. He could cook something for himself. Even if he had not touched a stove in...well, the number of years didn’t matter.

He remembered seeing eggs during his earlier inventory. An omelette, then. That had to be simple enough. Surely.

It turned out to not be such a sure thing, but as he scraped the sticking mess of puffy yellow softness onto a plate, he told himself he much preferred scrambled eggs anyway. He even took a couple slices of bread. Untoasted. Not because of any potential fire hazard due to his inexperience, but because...he could make a sandwich. With the egg. That was definitely, probably, a thing. Common food. He lived among the common people now; he couldn’t expect to be presented with imported cured meats from Gallopolis and magically frozen desserts from Sniflheim.

And he still had his stash of tea and chocolates for emergencies.

* * *

The sofa felt less comfortable the second time around. The lumps in the fabric pressed into the backs of Jasper’s thighs as he sat and picked at his food. The eggs were a little overdone. The house was very quiet.

A pang of something unfamiliar resounded in Jasper’s chest suddenly, tolling heavily through him and making him lower his fork. He blinked and cleared his throat, thinking perhaps he had swallowed a piece of food wrong, but the feeling didn’t subside. He felt—

But therein lay the problem. He didn’t know _how_ he felt. He was used to feeling mildly irritated, or vaguely amused, sometimes annoyingly niggled by guilt, but this...was different. Melancholy, but not overtly sad. A hint of yearning, but not the way he usually yearned for a sugar kick, or a lie down in a dark room, or— Well. Other things.

Perhaps it was simply that the food didn’t agree with him. He had eaten four entire forkfuls, after all. That must be it.

He threw the rest of it out and made a quick attempt at washing up. He felt a little sick, his stomach hollow and his appetite gone. The eggs must have been bad. He might avoid them for a little while.

* * *

In five minutes he had locked himself in his room, drawn the curtains, and curled up in bed. The sun had barely begun to set, but Jasper found he had no desire to be awake any longer. If he slept, he would feel better in the morning - that was how these things worked.

But he didn’t sleep, not for several hours, not until he heard Beryl and Moira return, their voices carrying through the thin walls as they talked and laughed together.

He didn’t sleep until he had thought many times of Heliodor, and his own room and his own bed with the soft sheets and his favourite pillow. Until he had wondered what Hendrik had eaten for dinner, and how many servings, and if he had even bothered asking for extra dessert now that Jasper wasn’t there to pilfer it from him; until he had considered if Jade was menacing anyone else in lieu of her favourite target, or if she had written him yet, if her words were travelling across the ocean to him at that very moment and what they might be; until he had even spared a thought for his fellow knights, and if they were faring better under King Carnelian’s orders than he was.

He only slept, finally, when the room was fully dark, and his new roommates had retired too, and he had made a small, silent wish to the Goddess to let his six months pass quickly, so that he might return home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> scots slang translation notes:  
> let's be real, it's far easier if i just translate dougie's lines in their entirety.  
>  **“Seen ye daunderin’ aboot lookin’ a bit lost. If yer wantin’ somehin’ tae dae, gonnae geez a haun? Ah’m fair puckled.”** = "i saw you wandering about looking a bit lost. if you want something to do, could you give me a hand? i'm very tired."  
>  **“Ah said, gon-nae geez a haun? Ah’m knackered, an’ are you knight-types no supposed tae help pair auld folks like me?”** = "i said, could you give me a hand? i'm exhausted, and are you knight-types not supposed to help poor old folks like me?"
> 
> i wasn't going to do the "no one understands the broad scots character" joke because it's really unfunny in literally every piece of media i've ever seen it used in, but i can do what i want and i've decided it's funny when i do it because i can actually do it right :)
> 
> thanks to my angel [sam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunarExo) for looking over this chapter and assuring me it wasn't hot garbage before i posted it, and also for giving me the idea that jasper just cannot fucking cook to save his life. it makes sense. spoiled little posh boy. (also please read sam's fics they have written some lovely lumineriks among other things!!)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jasper has a strange dream, crosses swords with the Luminary, and receives some words of wisdom.

It was dark. Not the dark that came from a simple lack of light - this dark was all-encompassing, compressing, claustrophobic. It was the kind of dark that crowded down throats and crushed lungs desperate for breath, that could not be illuminated and made safe because there wasn’t enough air to strike a match.

This dark was pure despair given form.

And within this despair was a child.

Sitting small and forlorn, the child cried, wailed _where are you_ and _don’t leave me_ and _I’m scared_ to the pressing nothingness all around. Their hands scrubbed away tears as more fell to take their place, those the child didn’t catch hitting the floor with a soft _plink plink plink_ like scattering pearls.

Jasper looked down at them. He was in this space, too. That didn’t scare him, though it probably should. In this dark, this stifling, awful blackness, he could breathe. He could move. He felt fine.

That was what terrified him.

What terrified him more was that the child wasn’t him.

He often dreamt of his own childhood. But this child was all the wrong shapes, the wrong colours, the wrong pitch to their sobs.

He drew closer. The child’s tears continued to fall, shining as they hit the floor, like liquid metal sickly reflecting nothing as they gathered around the child’s legs. Like a story he had had read to him as a child, before—

About a girl who fell into a strange world and cried a pool of tears in her sadness.

This child - this girl - was not crying a pool. Her tears moved as if puppeted, pulled in odd ways into strange shapes, solidifying into walls and bars and doors and it looked like a castle but felt like a cage, and—

He knew this girl. 

He thought he knew this girl, but when he tried to remember a grin he saw a snarl, heard a cruel cackle instead of a childish giggle. He tried to say her name, but the wrong word came out. Too many syllables, too harsh the sounds.

She turned at the sound, and instead of a girl she was a beast. Instead of fingers catching his sleeve it was claws.

Instead of dark all around, it was gold.

* * *

Jasper awoke feeling sick.

The dream was already fading fast from his memory, but the uneasiness it incited remained, falling heavy to the pit of his stomach as he sat up. Usually his nightmares came to him in flashes of blood and swords and regret, ending in his death. If he dreamt of others, they were there only to strike him down. But this time…

A child. A girl. Misery made manifest, everything made gold. Everything gilded. Gilded, gilt, Gyld—

A rush of nausea swept through Jasper as another flash of gold entered his periphery. But it was just his pendant, resting on the table where he had left it the night before.

He grabbed it without really knowing why. Familiarity, perhaps. Comfort. Some approximation of faith. 

Holding it tight and pressing it against his chest, he felt the manic _thump thump_ of his heart reverberating through it. Cool metal rolled against clammy skin, every ridge of the carved emblem branding him. He curled over it and clutched it like a lifeline, like if he just dug it in hard enough it might pierce his chest completely, like he might be able to absorb this manifestation of the one good thing in his life - replace one heart with another - and it would make everything fine.

But that didn’t happen. All it did was make his chest hurt, and when the sickness passed and his pulse slowed, he peeled the pendant away from his skin and was left with an aching but temporary red mark in the vague shape of an eagle.

* * *

He found he was alone in the house again. What had been a comfort before now left him unsettled, with nothing to distract him each time his thoughts strayed towards his nightmare. In Heliodor, his bad dreams were easily enough forgotten amongst the constant movement in the castle and the rigidity of schedules, the scratch of quill on paper during meetings and the shriek of steel clashing during training.

Here, on the quiet fringe of Dundrasil, with the pale sun barely crested over the hills and the river burbling like a lullaby, it was difficult to believe anyone else existed at all.

His stomach growled loudly, disrupting the strangeness of his thoughts with a sharp twist of hunger. Jasper put a hand to it, recalling with a frown his poor attempt at feeding himself the night before.

He wasn’t alone here, no matter what lies his mind tried to conjure. And he was glad, because that meant he didn’t have to make his own breakfast.

He just hoped eggs weren’t on the menu.

* * *

They weren’t. Thank the Goddess.

He thanked the Goddess a little louder when he strolled into the food court and saw an array of loaves and pastries and jams and spreads all laid out along the length of one of the tables. A group of apparent chefs were gathered around another that was being used for food preparation, talking and laughing with great cheer despite the early hour, their faces glowing from the heat of the ovens as they kneaded and tossed dough together.

The food was abundant, and this early in the day the area was not yet mobbed. Jasper cut himself some slices from a loaf that had nuts baked into it and layered them generously with marmalade. After a moment of consideration he added a croissant to his plate as well. He deserved a croissant.

He ate slowly and alone. The few other people who were breakfasting early must have done so regularly, for they all sat together. They were all unfamiliar faces, and so Jasper sat pointedly away from them.

It was a bit strange, not having Hendrik at his elbow as he ate. Even if they were both busy with separate duties for the day, they had made a habit of at least eating breakfast together. Jasper hadn’t noticed it while he was travelling, but with the soft conversations of his fellow early risers reminding him of the dining hall at the castle, it suddenly felt wrong to not smell the overpowering scent of Hendrik’s coffee, or hear his quietly rumbling voice inquiring into Jasper’s schedule for the day.

Jasper finished his breakfast just as the area began to get busier. He still didn’t see anyone he recognised, and so he had just decided to go and find Beryl and see if he could put his mind to any logistical tasks when he heard someone say his name.

When he turned, he saw the Luminary shouldering through the budding crowd, smiling genially. And Erik at his back, glowering.

“Jasper,” Eleven said again as he reached him. “Glad I caught you.”

“Luminary,” Jasper greeted, and after a moment added, “Erik. Good morning.”

Erik’s glare hardened, but at an unsubtle nudge from his partner he complied with a curt nod.

“Did you already have breakfast?” Eleven asked. When Jasper nodded, the boy looked legitimately disappointed. Jasper couldn’t comprehend it. He couldn’t have wanted to eat together, could he? Especially not with Erik trying to test if looks really could kill. “Oh, okay, well, do you mind meeting us in the upper district in about an hour? Grandad wants to see us.”

Jasper’s heart gave a particularly loud thump at the boy’s words. Excitement, he told himself. Not anxiety.

“Understood,” he said, beginning to turn away. “I will see you then.”

“Oh, and Jasper?”

When Jasper looked back at the Luminary, the boy had on a strange, knowing smile.

“Bring your swords.”

* * *

The hour passed too slowly.

Jasper reclined on the sofa, an arm thrown over his eyes, listening to the _tick-tick-tick_ of the shabby wall clock. The seconds seemed to increase in tempo the longer he listened, but every time he shifted to look, no more than a few minutes had passed.

At first, he had tried reading. But not only were most of the books in the house about either economics or horses, subjects which he did not have a great recreational interest in, he found he could not concentrate past the first three pages of any of them.

Then, stupidly, he had tried to practise magic. Palm up, concentrating, he had chanted _Heal, Heal, Heal_ in his head, then out loud, his jaw clenching tighter the longer nothing continued to happen. The moment he prodded at his dark magic and it licked across his palm instantly was the moment he gave up and lay down.

Eventually, thankfully, terrifyingly, his hour was almost up, and he affixed his swords to his belt and made his way to the upper district.

* * *

When Jasper arrived, he was not surprised to see Eleven and Lord Robert already there. He was not particularly surprised to see Erik at Eleven’s side either, given the boy’s tendency to hang around the Luminary like a bad smell. He was, however, surprised to see that a small crowd had gathered, and that they were all bristling with anticipation...and that they all turned to look at him as he walked up.

“Lord Robert,” he greeted, “Eleven. ...Erik. What is all this?”

“Glad to see ye could make it, Jasper,” Lord Robert said, smiling warmly. “And that ye came equipped.”

“Yes, I did wonder about that.” Jasper noted that the Luminary was carrying a sword as well, though it was not the shining blade of evil’s bane that he had expected him to wield. It was, by all appearances, a regular steel sword.

“Well, as ye’ve probably guessed by now,” (and Jasper was indeed beginning to,) “since yer both my pupils now, after a fashion, I thought it’d be an idea to get ye’s to have a wee sparring match. Just so I can see the measure of ye both at the same time. I already ken my grandson back to front, but with you, Sir Jasper, I have nae idea where to start.”

Jasper was not sure if that was intended as a compliment. He decided not to ask.

What he did ask was, “Is the crowd really necessary?”

It was Eleven who answered this time, with a shrug: “Nothing much exciting happens around here, so it’s to be expected. They used to watch Erik and me spar too, until it got boring because I knew all his tells.”

Erik scoffed, “I know all yours too!” He nudged Eleven, and Eleven nudged him back. They shared a smile. Disgusting.

“I took on Grandad once,” Eleven added. “I think everyone stopped working to watch that one.”

“No that there was much to watch,” Lord Robert sighed. “He went easy on me ’cause I’m just an auld man.”

Eleven laughed. “Really, he just beat me so soundly it was over in five minutes.”

Jasper turned a sceptical eye on the old man. He knew he was a powerful mage, and that being Drasilian royalty he had trained in Angri-La in his youth, but to be able to take down the Luminary at all, never mind so swiftly, at his age...

He had no time to continue his musings however, as Lord Robert declared, “Well, if ye’s are both ready, take yer positions.”

* * *

The area they were to spar in was nothing more than a wide expanse in Dundrasil’s upper quarters that had been cleared of debris and marked with a large circle carved into the dirt. Two crosses had been crudely drawn inside the circle, opposite each other, and it was on these that Eleven and Jasper stood. Jasper estimated a good twenty feet of space between them; it was enough to account for a bit of ranged combat with magic, but still suited a traditional sword fight.

“Now, this isnae a match to be won or lost,” Lord Robert announced from the spot he had chosen a short distance away, sandwiched between two halves of the crowd of onlookers, “so I want nae serious hits. Other than that, yer free to fight however ye like, with spells or swords or anythin’. Understood?”

“Understood,” Jasper said. Eleven nodded.

“Then ye can draw yer weapons and begin as ye like.”

Jasper’s swords were in his hands almost before Lord Robert had finished speaking, but Eleven wasn’t far behind, spurred on by an enthusiastic cheer from the crowd. Immediately, the boy brought his blade in front of him, the flat pointed outward with his other hand bracing it, defensive and ready to parry. A smart move towards a mostly unfamiliar opponent. 

Jasper shifted into his own defence, lowering and widening his stance slightly, his swords crossed in a dangerous barrier before him. His shoulders and back gave a slight twinge of pain at the motion. _Bloody manual labour_. 

Ignoring that, Jasper moved off his starting position and to his left, beginning around the inside of the circle. Eleven did the same.

Jasper analysed the Luminary as they both slowly circled one another. The boy held himself well for someone who was, as far as Jasper knew, mostly self-taught, but there were likely to be vestiges of where his companions had bestowed combat knowledge upon him somewhere in his fighting style. His stance was solid, his grip on his sword practised and steady, his jaw set with concentration. He certainly looked the part of the hero.

Then there were his mysterious Luminary powers. It seemed unlikely he would call upon them in a simple sparring match, but it was still a very real possibility that Jasper would have to face the boy’s larger than average magic reserves.

But he had ways of dealing with that.

Soon they had both made their way around a perfect semicircle of the arena, each now standing on the cross the other had begun from. When Jasper stopped, Eleven stopped opposite him. They regarded one another. The crowd thrummed with murmurs of anticipation.

Eleven broke first.

He dropped his stance and rushed at Jasper, his sword arcing back in the start of a downward slash. He moved fast and with confidence, closing the gap between them in a matter of seconds.

But it was too obvious. He’d started swinging too early to ever be a threat, and Jasper knew as soon as he saw it that the conspicuous blade was nothing but a distraction to hide what the Luminary was really doing.

And what the Luminary was really doing was casting a spell.

Jasper let him get close. Let him get just a few feet away. Dodged the false swipe easily, smiling to himself as Eleven’s left hand came up as predicted, his Luminary mark shimmering and crackling with barely contained power…

And then Jasper sheathed one of his swords in a fraction of a second and held his own hand up, directly in front of Eleven’s chest.

“I don’t think so,” he said, and released his spell. The sealing shackles of Fizzle wrapped instantly around Eleven’s core and shut his magic down at the source. It was immensely satisfying, the way the boy’s eyes widened as his spell spluttered and died on his fingertips, his sword at the wrong angle for a back-up slash, _utterly defenceless_.

Jasper stabbed forward. Eleven dodged as expected, hopping back out of range with an impressive reaction time, but it gave Jasper the time he needed to draw his second sword again, even if it meant Eleven had recovered too. 

Now they faced each other once more, but with Eleven’s magic locked, if he wouldn’t use his Luminary powers then he was just a boy with a sword against a man with two. He didn’t seem put off by this, though - if anything, his eyes seemed brighter, a flash of his teeth looking annoyingly like a smile.

Jasper quashed a sudden, strange urge to mirror it.

It became a rather straightforward sword fight from that moment on. Eleven was quicker on his feet than Jasper had expected, but it was nothing his years of practised footwork couldn’t handle. For every step forward with his right foot Eleven took, Jasper shifted in parallel, keeping out of his range; for every swift Falcon Slash the boy attempted, Jasper returned it twofold and forced him into defence.

But Eleven had a power behind his moves that Jasper hadn’t totally accounted for. His taller stature - _though only by an inch or two at most_ \- and bulkier build gave a more considerable heft to every one of his swings, and Jasper found himself having to disengage and retreat more often after blocking strikes that left his aches from the day before throbbing with the effort.

But Eleven’s strength worked to his disadvantage too, when he underestimated Jasper’s quickness and his sword cut through empty air and left him grappling awkwardly with his own momentum. Jasper stepped forward with a confident thrust that forced the boy to jump back, clumsily gathering his bearings and redistributing his weight again. That it was a training match was the only reason he had time to right himself - in any other situation, Jasper would have forced such a fumbling opponent to their knees without mercy. Or perhaps run them through.

The whims of the crowd moved with the match as well, their whoops and cheers and _ooh_ s and _ahh_ s ebbing and flowing like a tide depending on who had the upper hand at the moment. Erik’s yells resounded above the rest whenever Eleven made a particularly good jab at Jasper, and on one occasion where Jasper turned a simple dodge roll into an unnecessarily flashy spin on the way up, a chorus of wolf-whistles rang out from behind him.

With a particularly heavy grunt, Eleven gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands and swung directly at Jasper’s middle, putting all of his energy into the strike.

Jasper at once saw the motion for what it was, and smirked. Of course Hendrik had taught the boy some of his favourite tricks. He knew Eleven would step into a spinning strike immediately after the first swing, carrying himself through his momentum and letting it become a weapon rather than a handicap.

But it was a risky move, leaving him vulnerable to anything that could get through his spinning blade until he could bring himself to a stop. Not only that, but with a one-handed weapon the attack’s range was greatly diminished, giving Jasper much more room to manoeuvre his counter.

Which he did.

Dropping to almost a squat and using one of his swords as a brace for his weight, Jasper struck as soon as Eleven’s sword had passed and was coming around for the second swing. In the blink of an eye he hooked his foot around Eleven’s ankle and yanked, knocking the boy’s precarious balance to pieces.

Eleven went down with a yelp - not as satisfyingly heavy as Hendrik usually did, but as Jasper rolled aside to avoid being squashed or skewered and stood again, it was a sight to behold nonetheless. The boy lay in what could only be described as a heap, limbs pointing in all directions.

“Did you really think that, of all things, would work on _me_?” Jasper asked, coming to stand directly over the Luminary. He pointed one of his swords between the boy’s eyes, and the crowd made a long, low _oooooh_ of approval. Erik shouted a very unkind word.

“Not really,” Eleven said, a stupid grin plastered over his face despite his obvious loss. But then his smile sharpened at the corners, a glint coming to his eyes. “But this might.”

He held a hand up. Jasper felt the invocation of magic spark to life in the air, and he realised just how foolish he had been.

With all his crowing, he hadn’t considered that it may have been Eleven’s plan to draw him into a false sense of security. He hadn’t noticed the seal on his magic fading. He couldn’t renew it in time. And with no idea just what Eleven was casting, he couldn’t risk fleeing and running right into its area of effect.

He braced, expecting a tornado of flames to flare to life around him, or an arc of lightning to strike the ground at his feet. Lord Robert had forbidden attacks meant to seriously harm, but that didn’t mean the Luminary couldn’t use his magic to limit Jasper’s mobility, which would leave him at a serious disadvantage.

But instead of searing heat or the crack of thunder, what Eleven conjured to life was...a smokescreen.

Or at least appeared to be a smokescreen, but Jasper realised a second later that wasn’t the case - it was a banishment spell that puffed into life around him like a flotilla of little clouds, catching against his sleeves and itching at his skin. He paused, perplexed: banishment spells didn’t work on people, and this one was of such an astonishingly low level that it would barely even work on a slime. Clearly it wasn’t an area of magic the Luminary excelled in.

So what was the purpose of casting it? Had he taken Lord Robert’s words too seriously, refraining from using even a single offensive spell? But no - he had been on the cusp of casting something more considerable when Jasper had sealed his magic, he was sure of it. So why bother with such a useless trifle? Unless it was—

A distraction. A _cover_. It might not be a literal smokescreen, but it definitely functioned as one, and Jasper couldn’t see through it at all. It would likely clear in a moment, but until then all he had to go on was where he had known the Luminary to be before, as well as what he could sense of his presence through the dampening annoyance of the spell.

But Eleven was already up and moving. Jasper could just hear the scuff of his boots above the excited shrieks of the crowd, and so he brought his swords before him in a cross-guard. The boy would probably go for a simple front strike now that he was back on his feet.

But he didn’t. Jasper thought wrong.

And that was enough for Eleven to knock his feet clean from under him.

This time it was Jasper who went down with an ungainly thump, his breath leaving him through rattling teeth as his rear met the ground hard. The shock twanged painfully through his achy muscles. 

Now much closer to the ground, he could more easily feel the Luminary’s movements through the air, the spell shifting and beginning to fade with every motion the boy made. A brief outline of his torso became visible through the smog; he had his sword poised now, aimed for a direct strike at Jasper’s prone form.

Jasper couldn’t strike back. With his fall, his grip on his swords was all wrong, and the moment it would take to right it would be a moment too long.

He could dodge, roll off to the side again, but with the smokescreen and his awkward landing position he was already disoriented. He wouldn’t be able to counter swiftly. He would be wide open. All because he had underestimated the Luminary, _again_.

Jasper tutted, dropped one of his swords, and thrust his open hand towards the outline of Eleven. Darkness gathered in his palm at once, forming into a roiling, turbulent sphere.

He hadn’t really wanted to do this. He hadn’t wanted to use this magic at all if he could help it. But if the boy was going to insult him by resorting to such childish spells when he had all the power of the Luminary at his disposal, then Jasper felt a little better about using his own gifted abilities.

Plus Eleven had used his own leg sweep move against him, and that was just _annoying_.

He fired off the spell, and that was enough to dispel Eleven’s makeshift smokescreen entirely. It buckled under the power of superior magic, hissing as it faded and clearing the area. Jasper was pleased to see he had aimed true and his ball of darkness was flying straight at Eleven’s face.

He just hoped the boy had the sense to dodge it.

Eleven did not dodge. Eleven _smiled_ , and with his left hand touched the flat of his blade even as he kept it pointed squarely at Jasper, and when his Luminary mark began to blaze his entire sword blazed along with it.

Jasper had to cover his eyes, so he missed the next series of events. He heard a gasp from the crowd, the _hiss_ of a spell dispersing, a blade whistling through air, and he braced as sudden dread tightened around his throat like a noose. The last time a sword had come at him, the Luminary had stopped it, but now the Luminary was the one with the sword. 

The boy wouldn’t hurt him. Jasper knew this. Even if it had been a real fight, Eleven was stupidly soft, and he had done more good for Jasper than he had ever deserved. There was little need to fear him.

But fear was rarely logical.

The strike never came, and the Luminary’s light faded. Jasper slowly opened his eyes to see Eleven standing over him, his sword an inch from Jasper’s nose as he grinned down at him. He looked a little smug, which Jasper took an instant dislike to. At least that helped to push down the tremor in his shoulders.

“Looks like it did work,” Eleven said.

Jasper’s face twisted into a scowl. Holding only one of his swords, at such a low angle, and with Eleven’s blade dangerously close to his face, he could barely move, let alone think of counterattacking.

He was beaten.

“Well then,” said Lord Robert, breaking away from the crowd and coming to stand beside them. “Let’s call it a draw, shall we?”

“Yeah, right,” Erik contested, swaggering up to Eleven and pressing himself close to the Luminary’s side - but his eyes stayed fixed on Jasper, a satisfied sneer to his lips like he’d been the one to beat him. “El kicked his ass.”

Eleven sighed his partner’s name, rolling his eyes, but there was a twinkle to them that implied he didn’t exactly disagree. “It was a close one.” He sheathed his sword, wiped his hands on his shirt and then extended one to Jasper. “You’re really quick, and I had no idea what to do when you Fizzled me.”

Jasper snorted and stood up by himself, dusting his clothes off. He flexed the fingers of his free hand, pleased that the ridiculous shake in them was already subsiding. “And yet you bested me nonetheless. You should have more faith in your abilities, Luminary.”

It was strange, but Jasper wasn’t as annoyed by his loss as he felt he should be. To be beaten by someone half his age, who had never undergone formal training, should have shamed him to his very core. But aside from a lingering stinging to his pride to have ended up on his backside in front of so many people, he felt...alright, mostly. A little breathless. His pulse fluttered a beat harder than normal, and flickers of intrusive thoughts pulled his already sore shoulders a bit too tight as he bent to retrieve his fallen sword, but most of the heat in his blood came from something else.

Exhilaration.

Though it was nothing compared to his regular bouts with Hendrik, the boy hadn’t been entirely predictable. Perhaps he would make a halfway decent sparring partner while Jasper was in Dundrasil.

“Let’s no get caught up in semantics,” Lord Robert chided. “I said there was nae winner or loser, and ye’s both performed admirably.” Turning to Eleven, he added, “El, ye did well out there, but everything I’ve telt ye before still stands. But now I’d like to speak to Jasper first, if ye’ll gie us a wee bit of privacy.”

Jasper’s blood tinged cold at the old man’s words. Eleven was led away by Erik, their hands swinging repulsively between them, and the crowd dispersed, and Lord Robert’s remaining pupil was once more left alone in his company.

“Och, you dinnae need tae look so nervous,” Lord Robert said, and that at least had the chill in Jasper’s veins thawing with a self-conscious flush.

* * *

Again, Jasper found himself following Lord Robert as they strolled through the upper quarters, but this time the old man was silent as the grave. It probably wasn’t a bad sign. Probably. But as they meandered between the ruined houses in seemingly random patterns, neither towards the stairway to the former castle nor back down towards the outskirts, any people they passed took one look at Lord Robert’s expression of serious deliberation and gave them a politely wide berth.

It might have been a bad sign.

Eventually, when they had just passed the ruins of what looked like a church, Lord Robert said, “Yer a very smart man, Jasper.”

Jasper, snapping to attention, said, “Thank you, sir.”

“It’s no a compliment, just a statement of fact. Yer incredibly intelligent. I could near enough hear the cogs turnin’ a mile a minute durin’ yer match there.”

Jasper, discouraged from expressing any more gratitude, kept his mouth shut.

Lord Robert added, “But sometimes I think ye might think _too_ much.”

The words struck Jasper like a thousand volts of the Luminary’s lightning magic. He had a sudden, unpleasant recollection of a ruler being rapped across his knuckles by a tutor, berating him for thinking too long about the answer to a question. The countless times he had missed a simple conversational cue because he was already several sentences ahead in his mind, planning his words to perfection. Atop Yggdrasil, his plan to enact Mordegon’s bidding foiled because he had failed to account for the breadth of the Luminary’s power.

“I’m guessin’ yer thinkin’ a bit too much again, then,” Lord Robert chuckled, and Jasper flinched. “It’s no a bad thing - sometimes I wish El would think _more_ before he leaps into action - but, to put it plainly, it ended up working against ye back there. Ye had expectations an’ theories of how El would fight, and when he did somethin’ ye didnae account for, yer strategy fell to bits. Am I wrong?”

Jasper, aflush with shame, shook his head curtly.

“Dinnae take this the wrong way. Like I said, yer a clever man, and I’ve nae doubt that given twenty or thirty seconds ye’d have come up with a new plan, but, well...El is a bit quicker than both you an’ me when it comes to improvisin’, eh?”

“Yes,” Jasper painfully agreed. “It was...impressive.”

Lord Robert laughed. “To be honest, I hope he takes a lesson fae you on how to improvise less an’ use his heid more. That laddie runs on instinct and feeling and little else, and I swear to Yggdrasil hersel’ he’d have dropped deid a hundred times o’er if he hadnae had the rest of us to watch his back.”

Jasper gave a small and polite nod. It was safer to remain quiet on the subject of the Luminary potentially dropping dead.

“But enough about my grandson. He’ll get his turn later,” Lord Robert said with a sly smile. “Where I wanted to ask was: what were ye thinkin’, right at the end there, the moment ye fired off that Zam spell at El?”

That gave Jasper pause. So much pause that his feet stopped working, and he came to a halt. Lord Robert stopped too, turning back to regard him while still wearing that same smile.

What _had_ he been thinking? That he didn’t want to lose, of course; that he was frustrated, annoyed, maybe a little bit desperate; that he hoped Eleven was smart enough to avoid taking a spell to the face, point-blank… But those were all borne of emotion more than reason, weren’t they? As for what he had _thought_ , the exact line of internal dialogue that had run through his head when he took the action, when he dropped his sword and let the vile magic form in his palm…

“Nothing,” he said. He breathed the word out with all the heavy rush of a sudden realisation. “I wasn’t thinking anything.”

“Exactly,” Lord Robert said, his smile widening into a full grin.

Jasper met it with a look of confusion. It sounded like the old king had come to some conclusion, but whatever it was, Jasper was not sharing in it. “With all due respect, Lord Robert, I prefer to think about that particular magic as little as possible no matter the circumstances.”

“Oh, and why’s that?”

“Because—” Jasper paused. He knew why, but saying it aloud was… But he could hardly avoid the question. “...Because the only reason I have it is because Mordegon gave it to me.”

“Aye, and the only reason I have mine is because Mordegon destroyed my home and took my family from me,” Lord Robert said, simply, like he was discussing the weather. “All my anger...all my sadness...it turned into power. Power that I didnae like to use at first. It just reminded me of everythin’ I’d lost. But the longer I had it, the more I realised - it wasnae goin’ anywhere. It was just pain, given form. That pain was mine to carry all my life. If I shut it away, pretended it wasnae there...what guid would that do? Better to accept it, understand it, and learn to use it so I could protect what I still had left.

“In time, Jade became as much family to me as my own daughter had been. And when I got El back, and now with Erik part of the family too, and wee Mia...do ye ken what’s changed?”

Jasper silently shook his head.

“Nothing,” Lord Robert answered. “Absolutely nothing. I have my grandson back. I’m rebuildin’ my home. I helped destroy the one who did all this,” he gestured to the rubble, “and an even worse evil besides. I got my revenge. I made what right I could. And it still hurts every day. It never stops - sometimes it lessens, but it’s always there, like an auld ache.”

Lord Robert paused for a moment, then held his hand out, palm up. Within it, a small, churning ball of purple-black rose to life instantly.

“Mordegon’s gone,” he said, “an’ I still have this magic. Mordegon’s gone, an’ you still have yours. Wherever it came from, whoever it belonged to afore us, it’s ours now.”

He closed his hand and the spell obediently extinguished.

Jasper gaped. It was his magic? _His_ magic? He had never once thought of it as such. It had always been Mordegon's. Mordegon’s gift to him; borrowed power, a taste of what he could hope to achieve once he helped his dark master’s plan come to fruition…

But that had never happened. Mordegon had been slain, and Jasper had always assumed the magic had just taken full root in him like a parasite looking for a host. An unfortunate side effect of failure. That he could wield it as he saw fit, that it obeyed his orders without question, had been something he had firmly ignored. Was it truly because—

“It’s yours, Jasper,” Lord Robert said, his voice soft. He was looking at Jasper with unrepentant warmth and understanding. Jasper floundered, again at a loss for words. No one had ever known how he felt about that part of himself before - how it felt to be left with tangible proof of your biggest regrets, to have your misery manifested into something that ran through your veins every day. And here was this old man, the former king of the country Mordegon had destroyed, grandfather to the Luminary that Jasper had hunted across all Erdrea, showing him genuine empathy. Saying he understood. Because he did. Their circumstances were almost entirely reversed, the victim and the villain, but the fact remained that Lord Robert knew what it was to wield pain as a weapon. 

Jasper looked away. He felt...strange. Hot. His nose tingled. He cleared his throat.

“An’ I think,” Lord Robert added, either ignorant to or kindly not addressing Jasper’s odd turn, “before we go anywhere near magical mendin’, we should do a wee bit of work with the magic ye already have first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stan rab we love our grandad
> 
> anyway, thanks for sticking with the absolute slog this fic has been so far! trust me, i know better than anyone how slow it's been. but hopefully the sparring match was at least a little exciting, and now that pretty much everything has been set up we can finally get down to the actual reason jasper went to dundrasil in the first place! expect the pace to be a little quicker from here on out, because if i wrote the whole six months' worth of daily occurrences it would actually take six months to read.
> 
> also expect more bonding moments with rab, el, mia, and maybe even erik...! (don't hold your breath)  
> and there might be a surprise in store somewhere along the line, for you all and jasper both... :3c


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It has been two weeks since Jasper's arrival in Dundrasil, and he has made very little progress in everything except his reluctant friendship with Erik's little sister.  
> Thankfully, the Luminary is ever a fountain of wisdom and willing to give him a hand, even if he didn't ask for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god i hope people still care about this fic

> **_Sir Jasper of Heliodor,  
> _ ** **_Reconstruction camp,  
> _ ** **_Dundrasil_ **
> 
> _Dear Jasper,_
> 
> _It has been a full week, and thus I assume you have arrived in Dundrasil by now. Unless, of course, you were beset by some tragedy on the water and are sadly drowned, in which case I shall look out my best black dress. But I know you are nothing if not tenacious, so I am trusting you did indeed complete your journey safely, even if neither you nor Rab have yet gotten around to reporting as such. Rab has an excuse, at least, but you certainly do not. Or is he running you so ragged already that you cannot find the time to send even a short note home to let us know how you are faring?_
> 
> _Which is to say, I am sick to the back teeth of tripping over Hendrik at every turn asking if I’ve heard from you yet. Please, for my sanity, write back soon to at least tell us you’re not dead._
> 
> _All my love,  
> _ _Jade_

* * *

> **_HRH Princess Jade of Heliodor  
> _ ** **_[ CONFIDENTIAL ]_ **
> 
> _Princess Jade,_
> 
> _May it please Your Highness to accept my apologies for such tardy correspondence. I have indeed safely arrived at my destination, though it has been rather hectic since, hence my delay in writing. I have begun my lessons, though have not learned anything substantial yet. Those take up the best part of my morning, and in the afternoons I am normally tasked with assisting with the reconstruction, so I am kept busy._
> 
> _Lord Robert is an incredibly spirited and wise man as always, and it was a most pleasant surprise to be reacquainted with the Luminary and Erik. Erik’s younger sister is also here, and she often pesters me for stories of Heliodor and Your Highness. The people here are very friendly, which I am thankful for._
> 
> _Please let Hendrik know I am well, and His Majesty as well if it pleases you. I barely have time to write this letter alone, so I trust Your Highness will pass along the message. I will write again with further developments._
> 
> _I have the honour to remain Your Highness’s humble and obedient servant,  
> _ _Jasper of Heliodor_
> 
> _(P.S. Would I be correct in assuming Your Highness wrote me without the knowledge of Your Highness’s aides? I am sure they would not approve of the casual tone of Your Highness’s letter.)_

* * *

Perhaps the informal postscript was pushing things a little, given how the rest of his letter dripped with sarcasm, but if Jade was going to make snide remarks then it was really the least he could do to get back at her a little. He still had to stick to proper royal correspondence protocol, whereas the princess could essentially write whatever she pleased as long as her aides weren’t watching. If she handed a sealed letter to someone and said, “post this,” woe betide them if they didn’t.

Jasper, on the other hand, still ran the risk of having his letter opened “for security purposes.” Honestly. He didn’t know who the castle postmasters thought he was corresponding with. His letters to merchants who hadn’t paid their levies on time could be construed as threatening if you really squinted, but that was about it.

But though his letter to Jade was now written (and he did feel a little bad about forgetting to write to her for almost two weeks, really), he still had to send it. Which was another hurdle entirely.

He had asked Beryl a few days ago how he went about sending mail home, and after she had drilled the weekly schedule into his head for the thirteenth time, she had said the words that had made his blood run cold:

“Mia’s our little postmaster here, so just find her in the morning and she’ll look after it until collection comes.”

She said some more words after that, but Jasper never heard them, and for good reason.

He had only just caught Mia trying to break into his bedroom via the window the day before (she had shrieked and run, cackling, when his head popped up over the sill, and he had made sure the latch was tight since).

She was the _last_ person he wanted to give his private mail to.

But there she was, with a little satchel bouncing at her hip as she trotted through the dining area, heaping bread and meats onto a plate as she went.

Jasper came up beside her, selecting his own breakfast, and the girl lit up. She really had taken an odd shine to him, tailing him like a little sabrecub no matter how many times he tried to shake her off. He supposed she might never have been in close proximity to a knight before, so he was a novelty to her. It would almost be sweet if she wasn’t so innocently sinister with everything she did. Like immediately stealing a piece of cheese from his plate and shoving it whole into her mouth.

“Morn’, Jafpuh,” she said, grinning cheesily.

Jasper frowned. “Good morning, Mia.”

She chewed and swallowed with disgusting enthusiasm, and then buzzed around Jasper’s elbows while she waited for him. She followed him to a table and plonked herself across from him, already tearing at bread with her teeth. She hadn’t even bothered picking up any cutlery. Putting Erik (very far) aside, the Luminary really ought to have taught her some manners.

“You’re late today,” Mia remarked, mouth full. It wasn’t worth scolding her. “Aren’t you usually with Rab already?”

“Yes, but he gave me the morning off, since I told him I had to write home.” Jasper reached into his pocket and placed the letter to Jade on the table. He watched as Mia’s eyes flickered with recognition, then excitement, and then grew bigger and rounder by the second. She at least had the decency to wipe her hands off on her shirt before she snatched it up, gazing at it with reverence.

But in the next instant she was looking at Jasper with an altogether different expression. “Is it to your wife?”

Jasper almost choked on his breakfast. “Wha— I—”

Mia ignored him, already squinting at his handwriting. “Princess... _Jade_?” She gasped, scandalised. “You’re married to the _princess_?”

“No!”

“Don’t be embarrassed! Erik’s gonna marry El, and _he’s_ a prince, and Erik isn’t even a knight, he’s just—”

“She’s not my _wife_ ,” Jasper ground out, sure that he was beet red. “The princess is like a _sister_ to me.”

He knew he was beet red a moment later when Mia smirked devilishly at him. “I was just messin’.”

Jasper groaned. It was too early to be humiliated by a teenager.

“Well, she’s lucky if she’s your sister. I wish _my_ big brother was more like you,” Mia pouted. “He’s all...serious now since he saved the world, he’s no fun. He’s all, ‘Mia, you should go to school,’ and ‘Mia, don’t talk back,’ and ‘Mia, put down my knife.’ He’s _boring_. You’re fun.”

Jasper supposed that “fun” meant “an easy target,” and for a moment he envied Erik for his graduation from the role. Just for a moment.

But there was that sweetness to Mia again, openly admitting how much she valued Jasper’s presence, even as prey for her pranks. He may not be one for the company of children, but he could least appreciate their unabashed honesty.

“Hey, can I read your letter?”

Never mind.

“Pardon?” Jasper said.

“Can I read it?” Mia repeated, waving the envelope back and forth.

“Absolutely not.”

“Aw, why? The princess’ll never even know! If I just steam it open I can stick the flap back down again after, no problem.”

“ _I_ will know,” Jasper pointed out, “because you have just told me your plan. And you can’t steam it open, it’s wax-sealed.”

Mia turned the envelope around and frowned when she saw it to be true. The wax was a shining bronze colour, and the seal itself was an engraving of the double-headed eagle of Heliodor. Both he and Hendrik shared the same seal. It had been a moment of silent pride to Jasper, to receive a personalised wax stamp like the upper echelons of Heliodorian society. It had felt important. He still treasured it.

Mia was still studying the back of the envelope with great interest, as though she was trying to devise a way inside it without leaving a mark. She probably was. She had that look on - the one Jasper had seen on her just a day before, through his bedroom window, when she had been attempting to jimmy the latch with some small metal object.

“Mia,” he said, slow and even, “why were you trying to break into my room yesterday?”

To her credit, she did look sheepish. She looked remorseful, too, but that one was almost certainly fake. “I, uh, just wanted to see something.”

“I believe windows are designed so that you can see _through_ them.”

She pouted even as she crammed another slice of bread in her mouth, chewing and swallowing with indignant fervour. “Ha ha, very funny.”

It was a little funny. Unappreciative brat.

“Well, just don’t do it again.”

“Okay,” Mia agreed. Far too easily.

“And perhaps I will have a word with Lord Robert about making sure Drasilian houses are built with more secure window locks.”

Mia’s face fell so quickly and intensely that Jasper had to bite his tongue to stop himself laughing.

Now, _that_ was funny.

* * *

After breakfast, and with his letter left in Mia’s (questionably) safe hands, Jasper was once more left to his own devices. It had become something of a common occurrence, and one that he was still getting used to - Lord Robert was of course in charge, Beryl and her team of helpers balanced the books, Moira took care of the horses who helped to ferry the heavier materials back and forth, and there were more volunteer builders and cooks and laundrymen and runners than Jasper could count. As for where he fitted in though...well, it seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once. Sometimes Beryl would find him and send him on errands in her frazzled apologetic way, sometimes he would answer the call of a passing volunteer and end up elbow-deep in demolition debris with them for the afternoon, and sometimes he had nothing much to do at all.

It had thrown him at first. The rigidity of his knightly schedule had been drilled into him for years. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, or so a particularly strict instructor had once barked at him.

(The irony was that he had never been what one would describe as idle, and yet.)

Still, sloth was not in his nature, and so if no one would give him a list of tasks, he would just have to make one for himself. As such, if he found himself unneeded his afternoons were usually taken up by some manner of training, as they often would in Heliodor. Sometimes he went running - the land around Dundrasil was fairly flat, though up towards Octagonia was hillier if he felt like more of a challenge - and sometimes he ran sword drills, either alone or with a partner. Sometimes, if he was free, that partner was the Luminary, and Jasper could correct his wrong steps and snap his posture straight with a single word, almost as though the boy was a new recruit. He might have made a decent knight, in another life.

Sometimes, though, Jasper would simply retire to his room and dig to the very bottom of his bag for where he kept his journal hidden. He didn’t write in it often, but since he had arrived in Dundrasil he had filled a few pages with private notes. He made sure to hide it well again afterwards, just in case Mia was ever successful in her criminal quest to toss his room.

Even less often, he would use the quiet and privacy to continue practising magic. True to Lord Robert’s word, they hadn’t so much as discussed magical mending yet, but that didn’t stop Jasper from making attempts in his own time, though they remained unsuccessful.

Truthfully, they hadn’t discussed much of _anything_ useful during his lessons yet. 

For the first few days, Jasper had recounted as much of his personal history with magic as he could remember: that he had shown some aptitude for it as he progressed through his knight training, and so had been selected to further his studies at the Royal Library of Sniflheim. (The northern lands themselves were horrid, cold places that Jasper had no affinity for, but there were plenty of fascinating tomes contained within the library, and its innermost room had the most wonderfully cosy fireplace. Lord Robert hadn’t asked about that, but Jasper had felt compelled to tell him anyway.)

Following his return to Heliodor, Jasper had continued to hone his use of the elements, though never to the extent of considering abandoning his career as a knight to become one of the kingdom’s mages instead. However, he confessed to Lord Robert after some coaxing, and with some shame, after he pledged himself to Mordegon and was gifted with his dark power, all other elements had fled him and showed no signs of returning. Only the Zam spells he shared with Lord Robert, as well as his ability to disable the magic of others, remained within him.

“As for healing magic,” he had admitted quietly, “though I understand the theory as well as any other kind of magic, I have never been able to—”

“Och, away with that nonsense,” Lord Robert had announced. “The bookish approach isnae always for everyone, so dinnae be too hard on yersel’. There’s more than one way to learn a spell. Look at El! That lad had never studied magic seriously a day in his life afore recently.”

“I’m not sure the Luminary of legend is a fair comparison,” Jasper had pointed out, and Lord Robert had laughed.

His words stayed with Jasper, though. _More than one way to learn a spell_. But what other ways were there? Jasper had only ever known theory and study before controlled practical application...and, well, being bestowed power by the personification of evil, if he was to count that. He would rather not.

He couldn’t exactly take a leaf out of Eleven’s book either (pardon the word choice). The boy was chosen, filled with goodness and light and other such nauseating trifles. He had been blessed with magic in abundance to help fulfill Yggdrasil’s wishes. There was very little chance of anyone else receiving that same boon. Especially Jasper.

What of someone closer to home, then? What of Hendrik? He wasn’t exactly gifted in spellcraft either - though he had already achieved the thing that Jasper was chasing after. (Again.) With his magic Hendrik was unable to harm, and had an innate ability to heal, to defend, to be a self-sacrificing fool for his allies. It fit him completely. He was Jasper’s perfect opposite.

Something old and deep and bitter reared its head when Jasper thought about that for too long, so he stopped.

Instead, he decided to do something that he actually enjoyed.

* * *

He rarely got to ride for fun in Heliodor. With the city’s bustling streets it was nigh on impossible to even navigate a horse outside of an official parade, and if he found himself on horseback outside of the city limits it was always for business.

The last time he had ridden for sport alone was...well, he couldn’t quite remember.

He had his own horse, just like Hendrik did - Pearl, named for her milky coat - but once Mordegon had taken control of Carnelian, Jasper had found time for recreation less and less, kept mostly at his master’s careful heel. Pearl was left to the stablehands.

After he...regained his sensibilities, he had felt such guilt for (among other things) how much he had ignored Pearl that he had gone to the stables himself, armed with carrots.

She had bitten him.

He had probably deserved it.

They didn’t really get along anymore.

* * *

Jasper had feared all the horses in Moira’s stables would be old and weathered like Tulip, but to his pleasant surprise he had come across half a dozen young and strong looking animals, who had all poked their noses out of their stalls to enquire upon their visitor.

The horse he selected was nothing like Pearl, in either colour or manner - she was mottled brown and cream, and full of the excitable sweetness of a filly - but she was just as confident, and hadn’t flinched in the slightest when an unfamiliar rider had climbed into her saddle and taken up her reins.

Lusie, Moira had said her name was. 

The Drasilian countryside was rather pleasant to ride through. The dottings of trees and border of mountains meant it lacked the vulnerable openness of the Emerald Coast. Jasper rather liked that. The salt air was murder on his skin.

He had taken to riding down towards the cabin he had shared with Moira the night before his arrival in Dundrasil. It was silent there save for the gush of the river, and for once Jasper found himself thankful for the background noise, that he couldn’t hear the ever-present hammering and sawing and yelling that came with living on a literal building site. It carried repugnantly far in the quiet air.

The cabin grounds were also where he had chosen to attempt another piece of advice Lord Robert had given him.

* * *

“Meditation?” Jasper couldn’t quite help the derisive curl of his lip.

“Aye. Reflection, lookin’ inwards,” Lord Robert added, turning to face him. “In Angri-La it went by many names, but the basic principle is much the same.”

“With all due respect, Lord Robert, I’m afraid I’m not exactly the, erm…the spiritual type.”

Lord Robert chuckled. “Funny, Grand Master Pang used to say the same thing about me, and yet I did alright for mysel’. I’m no askin’ ye to commune wi’ the Goddess hersel’ or anythin’. I just think...a wee bit of introspection might do ye good.”

Jasper was unconvinced, though he dared not say so.

“ _Objective_ introspection, mind,” Lord Robert added. “Takin’ it too personally only ever leads to a big heid or a broken heart, in my experience.”

Jasper remained unconvinced.

But he supposed it was worth a try.

* * *

And he had been trying. He really had.

He didn’t know much about meditation, or reflection, or whatever, but from what he had gathered it involved sitting quietly and breathing quietly and thinking quietly. Or...not thinking quietly? He’d heard talk of emptying the mind...but surely the “wee bit of introspection” Lord Robert had mentioned would involve at least some active brainpower. It was all a bit vague. He would have preferred some proper instructions.

Something soft and warm shoved at his cheek, and the last of his concentration splintered completely.

He opened his eyes, narrowing them as his assailant - Lusie’s mottled muzzle - moved in for another strike. He intercepted this time, bringing his hands up to catch her insistently probing nose. She could probably smell the snacks on him.

He sighed and stood from the cabin steps, fishing a sugar cube from his pocket. Lusie took it eagerly.

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” he said. Lusie ignored him in favour of prodding him for more sugar. He redirected her away from his pockets. “No more. Moira doesn’t know I’ve been sneaking you treats, and we’re going to keep it that way.”

Lusie snorted and turned away to go back to grazing. Clearly, if Jasper was not going to feed her, he was no longer worth her time.

Truthfully, he was not sure he was worth his own time either. He’d spoken true - he didn’t have a clue what he was really trying to achieve. Inner peace, a silent epiphany, whatever he was looking for: he couldn’t find it. Didn’t know _how_ to find it. He’d never had to look before.

When he tried to clear his mind, his thoughts clamoured in a way he had never noticed before; when he gave up trying to hold them back and made to let them pass, they persevered, tugging his focus this way and that until he forgot what he had been trying to do in the first place.

He’d always thought himself able to keep a lid on unwanted notions. Then again, he had spent the majority of his life so grossly and obsessively misinterpreting his own emotions that it had driven him right into the arms of evil. It had taken almost having a sword put through his chest and spending a few days in a cell with _literal rodents_ while the teenager he had hunted testified to save his life to snap him out of that one.

So perhaps he wasn’t a paragon of self-observation after all.

But, well. He was nothing if not tenacious.

He was just growing sick of the sight of his own eyelids and the constant whirl of his distractions when something else disturbed him. This time it was not Lusie (he could still hear her making irritating little horse noises to herself as she grazed), though it was the sound of another horse approaching. Hooves beat against the dirt path, and Jasper opened his eyes to see a grey horse begin to cross the bridge, and the Luminary astride its back.

It took all of his energy not to groan aloud.

“Jasper,” Eleven greeted as he dismounted. His horse immediately approached Lusie and bent its head to graze beside her. It had a wide-eyed, dopey look. Like master, like beast. “Moira said I might find you here.”

Jasper stood. “You were enquiring of my whereabouts.” It was not a question.

Eleven, at least, had the sensibilities to look a little apologetic. “Well, yeah. I wanted to talk to you, and Moira said she usually saw you ride off down this way whenever you borrowed Lusie—”

“What did you need to speak about?” That was a question, albeit one sighed wearily. He hoped the Luminary hadn’t seeked him out just to make idle conversation. It seemed to be a nasty habit of his.

“Your magic,” Eleven said. “I wanted to ask how it’s going.”

“Ah.” Jasper regarded Eleven - earnestness plastered across his face as plain to Jasper as the startling realisation that he had, actually, looked for Jasper simply to ask him that and he did, actually, want an answer - and sat down heavily on the cabin steps again. “It...isn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I’ve made no progress. Two weeks here and I am no closer to being able to magically mend than I was when I was your age.”

“Well, it _has_ only been two weeks,” Eleven reasoned. “You do have a whole six months—”

Jasper gave him a look and he closed his mouth. Wise boy. He then sat next to Jasper on the steps, which was less wise, but he either didn’t notice Jasper’s attempt to shuffle back into his own personal bubble or didn’t care.

“Well, what has grandad said?” Eleven asked. “Surely he gave you some pointers to start with?”

“Of a sort,” Jasper sighed. He pushed a hand through his bangs and fixed his gaze ahead as he recalled Lord Robert’s words. “He suggested...reflection. ‘Looking inwards.’ ‘Objective introspection…’”

“Meditation,” they both said at once.

Jasper looked to Eleven in surprise. He was further surprised to find the boy wearing the same expression of disdain Jasper himself had sported when the suggestion had been put to him.

Eleven met his eyes. “Yeah, he told me to do that too. I never understood it. I don’t really get all the sitting-down-and-listening-to-myself-breathe stuff.”

_Exactly_ , Jasper thought. And then he thought, _oh, no, I’ve just agreed with the Luminary. Soon he’ll be calling us friends._

“But I get what he means,” Eleven continued. “He explained it to me another way once, and I understood it. He just thinks meditation is the right way because it’s how he was taught in Angri-La. But I never had to go through that.”

The Luminary allowed a cheeky grin to pass across his lips, but then he took a deep breath and steadied himself. His hands seemed to move subconsciously as he spoke, with concentration, like he was searching for the right words in the air and plucking them to be spoken aloud; an old habit, perhaps.

“What he said was: magic can be driven by your emotions. Like a...a catalyst. And I knew what he meant then, because the first time I ever used my lightning magic it was to save my best friend from a monster. Back then, I didn’t even know I _had_ magic. I didn’t know I was the Luminary. All I knew was that she was going to get hurt, and I didn’t want that. And my magic...reacted.

“Even after Veronica started teaching me more spells, and I learned how to control my magic better, if I was ever angry, or scared, or desperate, it was like I never really had to think about it. It was always just...already there. Right on my fingertips. Like it knew what I wanted before I did.”

Jasper watched as Eleven flexed his fingers as he spoke, as though he would speak his lightning into existence to arc over his knuckles. But none came, and Eleven let his hands go limp again.

Jasper looked back up to his face. The boy’s expression had turned serious at some point. He had a hint of that strange, haunted, older look in his eyes again. Jasper still couldn’t decipher it.

But even still, he understood Eleven’s words. It was similar to what Lord Robert had said of his own dark magic, born of and enhanced by ugly emotions. It was similar to what Jasper himself knew. But to hear the like from the Luminary’s lips was strange indeed. Desperation, fear and anger were not words Jasper associated with him. He had always seemed to be a force of nature personified, the true incarnation of Erdwin’s Lantern, all malevolence now stripped and returned to luminous glory, annoyingly bright and persistent and attracting all sorts into his orbit.

But, Yggdrasil-chosen though he was, he was human. He had human emotions. He had human desires. Human problems.

He was just a normal boy.

Goddess above, Jasper had tried so hard to murder him.

“But healing magic doesn’t work like that, apparently,” Eleven went on. “It’s...fragile? Not that it’s more difficult, or harder to learn, it’s just— Grandad said it’s important to have a place of calm inside you to draw from when you heal. If you’re caught up in anger, or fear, then it’ll never work. But you _can_ still be angry or scared - some of the times I’ve had to do my best healing was when I was the most scared!” He paused and let out a breathless, mirthless little laugh. “It’s just...as long as you have that place, that centre, where your catalyst for magical mending lives inside you then you can call upon it no matter what else you’re feeling.

“‘Healing requires stability,’ that’s what Grandad said. He said stability can look like different things for different people, though, so that’s where his meditation comes in. Look inside, and find your stability.”

Eleven smiled at Jasper, like he had said something very wise and was waiting for affirmation. Jasper did not return the smile.

“Do not take this the wrong way, Luminary,” he said, “but I have been a military strategist for several years. I would think I already know how to keep calm under pressure.”

But to his surprise, Eleven shook his head, still smiling. Insufferably softly, but not condescending. Somehow that was more annoying than if he had been openly patronising.

Eleven said, “It’s not just about keeping calm. It’s not about putting aside your feelings like that. You...you accept them. You let them be there, too. You just have to not get overwhelmed by them. Even bad feelings are natural, so trying to get rid of them goes against the harmony of healing. ...Or so grandad says.”

Jasper regarded Eleven for a long moment, long enough that the boy - the young man, really, well on his way to approaching twenty - looked away and across the grass to the horses again. His profile was sturdy, his lingering baby-fat cheeks giving way to a strong jawline. His eyes, full with the weight of his legendary lineage, but still soft, still youthful, still kind.

The country boy who had stepped so unsurely into Heliodor castle so long ago had grown into the hero and prince everyone had wanted. It couldn’t have been easy for him. It _hadn’t been_ , Jasper knew that. He had been somewhat responsible for making it as difficult as possible.

And yet here Eleven was anyway.

Perhaps he knew what he was talking about.

Perhaps Jasper should actually listen to him.

“So, Luminary, what would you suggest?”

Eleven rounded on him, and there was his youthfulness in full force as he puffed out his cheeks and pouted. “First I suggest you start calling me by my name.”

That pulled a laugh from Jasper - a real laugh, however short and unpractised - and it caught Jasper himself by as much surprise as it did Eleven. It didn’t feel particularly strange or unwelcome though, and a smile lingered through his self-conscious flush.

“My apologies. What would you suggest, _Eleven_?”

Eleven beamed - _beamed_ \- but quickly lapsed into a more thoughtful expression. “Hm. Well, maybe if the sitting in silence thing doesn’t work for you either, you could try what helped me.”

“Which was?”

“Looking outwards instead of in.”

Jasper frowned. “Would that not defeat the entire purpose of the exercise?”

Eleven’s eyes were bright with earnest enthusiasm, his fists clenching with the force of a very clear conviction as he shook his head. “No, not like that. It’s more like...sometimes, the things that give us the most inner stability come from _outside_. Like a place, or a person, or a memory, or even a—a _thing_ \- something that makes you feel at ease, something that gives you this feeling of...of peace and calmness, no matter what else is going on.

“Sometimes,” he said, “the most turmoil is inside us and we need a little outside help to quiet it.”

Well, that was certainly a new way to look at things. Inner turmoil. Jasper supposed, if he was pressed, he could admit, very quietly, to himself and no one else, that he might have some of that.

“It’s Erik for me,” Eleven went on. “My whole family, really, everyone; but Erik is just...he was there from the beginning. When I had just found out I was the Luminary, and I was supposed to go on some world-saving journey even though I didn’t know what I was saving the world _from_ yet. When I was locked up and terrified, when Cobblestone was...well, you know.”

Jasper did know. Eleven very kindly did not point out why.

“When bad things kept happening, and the stakes got higher, and I was expected to do more and more by more and more people, Erik was always there. Of course, everyone else was too, but sometimes I felt like they expected more from me than anyone. It never felt like Erik expected _anything_ of me—but in a good way. Like I could have said, ‘hey, screw this Luminary thing,’ and run off and he would have taken my hand and run with me. He just...just loves me, and I love him, and I think that even if I had nothing else, that would be enough to keep me going.”

Jasper considered the young Luminary once more, smiling and soft and full of genuine tenderness for the people he had surrounded himself with, the family he had chosen for himself, and for his lifelong partner in particular.

Jasper didn’t think he had ever made an expression like that in his life. Not for his mother, before she passed. Not for Jade, nor the king, nor—

Jasper didn’t realise his hand had gone to his pendant until Eleven’s eyes flicked down to his chest, and only then did he feel where his fingers had curled around the shape of it, his thumb idly running along one of the patterned grooves.

“Ah,” Eleven said, with a certainty and understanding that was oddly reminiscent of his grandfather, and that made Jasper flush with blazing heat.

“I—”

He had no idea what he was going to say, only the notion that he had to say _something_.

But he never got the chance, because Eleven sprung to his feet, swinging his arms above his head into an exaggerated stretch before he hopped down the steps.

“I mean, it’s just something to think about,” he said, and now he was very deliberately not looking at Jasper, which Jasper appreciated and hated all at once.

Jasper managed to wheeze out, “I will...consider it.” He was still gripping his pendant. He couldn’t seem to let it go. He couldn’t seem to want to.

Eleven turned enough to nod at him. Their eyes met for a brief moment, but it was enough for Jasper to see that depth to Eleven’s gaze again, like he was not just seeing Jasper, but something else beyond him too—or, perhaps, within him.

But then Eleven turned away with some breezy farewell or other, told Jasper to make sure he didn’t miss dinner because Erik was making some Valorian seafood dish Sylvando had taught him, and then he was mounting his horse and riding off, leaving Jasper still sitting in rather dumbfounded, embarrassed silence, fingers still curled around the token of fealty over his heart.

He sunk his head into his other hand.

“I hate that boy,” he said.

Lusie trotted over and shoved her nose into his face.

“Neigh,” she said.

“And you can shut up as well.”

But he did reach into his pocket for the last remaining sugar cube and shove it into her waiting mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (slaps jasper) this bad boy can fit SO MANY repressed emotions in him  
> el is just gently trying to unearth them like a dedicated archaeologist with a little trowel and brush. keep going my son you can do it. he has a heart in there somewhere you just gotta find it. look you made him laugh. that's progress

**Author's Note:**

> find (and scream at) me on twitter at @QueenNeehola!


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